3-year illegal drivers license scheme unveils public corruption in Bay County
Public corruption brought Attorney General James Uthmeier to Bay County on Thursday.
Officials say two Bay County tax collectors' office employees were providing undocumented individuals with driver's licenses in return for compensation.
The employees identified as Bancelie Velazco and Demetrius Smith allegedly skipped steps and proper testing, then issued the licenses in exchange for cash or a 'Cash App' transaction.
Ford believes people from all over the state traveled here to buy the licenses, and that the illicit activity had been happening for around 3 years.
However, Bay County Tax Collector Chuck Perdue says they only noticed the suspicious activity last month, after reviewing April's month-end reports.
Florida Attorney General holds news conference in Bay County
Perdue says he immediately contacted Ford's office.
'I was starting to review our month-end reports, and I was seeing where, you know, on average, of my 80 employees, an employee on average during the month, will do 20 to 25 road exams. I had one employee, Mr. Smith, who did 295 exams in one month. So those exams take about 20 minutes each. So, doing the math, there's not that many work hours in the week, right?' Tax Collector Chuck Perdue said.
Sheriff Ford says the investigation has been ongoing for around a month, with the majority of headway being made on Wednesday. So far, there have been eight arrests, and officials have seized around $120,000 from the illicit proceedings.
Some of the arrests were individuals caught with fraudulent licenses, and others were people acting as brokers. Officials cited the involvement of a Callaway business called 'Cubamax'.
'The investigation also allowed us to arrest five additional individuals who are acting as brokers, running local businesses that claim to assist with immigration paperwork but instead arranged illegal transactions and funneled aliens from as far away as Miami to obtain licenses fraudulently,' Ford added.
Uthmeier and several others blamed the Biden administration for the illegal activity.
'I think today is yet another example of how the Biden border policy puts American families at risk. Here you've got hundreds of aliens that are cheating, that are breaking the law, that are buying driver's licenses without taking the test, getting on the roads, putting everybody in danger. So, you know, if there's any silver lining to come out of this terrible discovery, it's that law enforcement worked very well together. Continued to follow the breadcrumbs and ultimately uncovered, you know, pretty widespread and advanced operation,' Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said.
Officials said this is just the start of this investigation.
Perdue says it's unclear at this time if there will be any repercussions for individuals responsible for supervising the employees.
Sheriff's officials and Homeland Security Investigations will be working with the Highway Patrol and other agencies to track down the fraudulent driver's licenses. They say the fault lies with illegal immigrants who are adding pressure to the system.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Politico
29 minutes ago
- Politico
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New York Post
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Anti-Trump DA Alvin Bragg sure acts like he has something to hide — we're suing to find out
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Time Magazine
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- Time Magazine
Breaking Down the Ending of Netflix K-Drama 'Trigger'
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Captain Jo, Do's surrogate dad, becomes one of Baek's desperate targets when a jeonse fraud drives his daughter to suicide. Jo finds the men who scammed his daughter, confronting them at a karaoke room. When they show no remorse, he starts firing. Lee Do arrives on the scene once Captain Jo has followed one of the men outside. He convinces Jo to put the gun down, asking him not to let the feeling that killing the man will help fool him in this moment. 'How did you bear this pain at such a young age?' Jo asks Do. 'It was all thanks to you, Captain,' Do tells him, embracing his distraught father figure. Baek, who has orchestrated the entire scenario to drive up public anxiety around shootings and to break Do's resolve, doesn't like how the scenario ends. He comes out of the shadows to shoot both Captain Jo and Lee Do. 'Just wait and see,' Baek tells Do as he loses consciousness. 'You'll wake up to a whole new world.' The ending of Trigger explained As intended by Baek, Do is out of the action for at least a few days following the incident. When he wakes back up, he is devastated to learn that Captain Jo has died. He grieves Jo and her daughter, acting as the chief mourner at their funeral. Meanwhile, Baek has announced to the public that anyone who wants a gun in Korea can get one. Public fear is at an all-time high as thousands of weapons are delivered to the populace, and incidents of gun violence become more common as a result. On the news, political pundits begin to debate whether gun ownership should be legalized in Korea. The president is considering martial law. A 'Free Guns' rally is organized by Baek to pit the two sides of the argument against one another. Lee Do leaves the funeral in order to attend. Baek has a truck filled with boxes of weapons driven into the middle of the rally. Chaos breaks out as people frantically grab the weapons, thinking they need them to protect themselves. Baek sets off smoke bombs to further confuse the crowd. As Lee Do makes his way to Baek, he remembers a philosophical argument they had over dinner, before Do realized Baek's villainy. 'Wouldn't pulling a 5-milimeter trigger in pursuit of revenge spread fear in the minds of many?' Do told Baek. 'Out of fear that they might die without a gun, everyone will rush to get one. And a society like that will soon be destroyed.' Baek wants to create that society, and he is well on his way. 'It was this world that made the people angry,' he tells Do, making the bad faith argument. 'All I did was hand them a gun. It's up to them whether they pull the trigger.' In the smoky plaza, as scared people point guns at one another, Baek taunts Do. 'What I want is a single gun shot … that will make these people start shooting at each other' He wants Lee Do to be the one to pull the trigger. Baek disappears into the smoke and Do follows, gun drawn. Before he can find the man, a gun shot rings out. Baek has been shot, perhaps by his own hand. The plaza erupts into gunfire. In the chaos, Do sees a boy alone, crying for his mother, a gun in his hands. It is an echo of the boy he once was. Rather than defend himself, Do drops his gun and rushes to him. He embraces the child as the gunfire continues. 'It's okay. You're safe,' he tells him. The image is captured by a livestreamer on the scene. It stops nurse So-hyeon, whom we have been following throughout the series, from using a gun to kill the co-workers who bully her. Once the dust has settled, and scores of people are dead, the image of Lee Do embracing the scared child becomes a symbol of choosing empathy over violence. Later, we see the image at a memorial for the victims of the shooting. Another message at the memorial states: 'We will remember the innocent lives lost and work to create a safer world.' Does Moon Baek die at the end of Trigger? Baek is in a coma following the events of the firefight. The doctor tells Do, who visits Baek in the hospital, that he is unlikely to recover, due to his cancer and the blood loss sustained from the gunshot wound. Later, we see an English-speaking cabal of IRU members, including Jake, vaguely discussing their next business move. A woman walks into the wards where Baek is unconscious, presumably to kill him. Does Trigger have a happy ending? The ending of Trigger isn't happy, but it is hopeful. Across the country, the police hold illegal firearm drop-off drives to collect as many of the weapons as possible. One of the people who drops off a fun is nurse So-hyeon. "It took too long," she tells Officer Jang, who collects her signature. "You did the right thing,' he tells her. Lee Do survives to de-escalate another day. In an echo of what Captain Jo did for him, Do adopts the child he saved in the firefight. He picks the boy up from school, and holds his hand as he walks him home. Do is doing what he can.
