Robert J. Higdon, Jr., United States Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, announces that Maria Del Carmen Urieta-Lagunas 50, of Mexico, illegally present in the United States and residing in Wake County, North Carolina, was sentenced today to 6 months imprisonment. On August 23, 2018, she pled guilty to passport fraud.

 

Urieta-Lagunas applied for a United States passport using the means of identification of a United States citizen born in Texas. Further, the investigation revealed she had previously applied for a United States visa in Mexico under her real identity and was denied. Thereafter, Urieta- Lagunas assumed the identity of a United States citizen in order to remain undetected in the United States and travel internationally.

 

URIETA-LAGUNAS was sentenced in Raleigh by United States District Judge James C. Dever III, who in addition to the term of

incarceration, also imposed a one-year term of supervised release with a condition to remain outside of the United States if ordered

deported by immigration officials.

 

The case was investigated by the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service under the newly created framework of the Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force (DBFTF) in the Eastern District of North Carolina.