While most identity fraud is committed in the context of financial advantages, such as accessing a victim’s credit card, bank accounts, or loan accounts, some fraudsters use a fake identity to hide far more dark and dangerous crimes. In 2014, Ricardo Fermin Sune-Giron who entered the United States illegally and began living in Florida using his brother’s identity – something that may cause a sibling rift, since Sune-Giron joined an international gun smuggling ring.
Under his brother’s identity, Sune-Giron’s recruited people to buy guns, including Glocks, rifles, and AK-47s, from licensed gun dealers across Florida. Sune-Giron paid these “straw purchasers” tens of thousands of dollars to do so for him. One straw purchaser bought more than 153 guns for Sune-Giron. After acquiring the fraudulently purchased firearms, Sune-Giron smuggled them overseas, including to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Unfortunately, several of those guns were later recovered at crime scenes in the Dominican Republic.
On April 18, 2024, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Security Investigations executed coordinated search warrants at residences where Sune-Giron was known to be located. These agents recovered more than fifty firearms, ammunition, money counters, and approximately $16,000 in U.S. currency from Sune-Giron’s home, which is only a small part of the scheme. Sune-Giron and his co-conspirators trafficked thousands of firearms.
On January 9, 2025, Sune-Giron pleaded guilty to conspiracy, firearms trafficking, dealing in firearms without a license, and possessing firearms as an illegal alien.
This case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives
Today’s Fraud of The day is based on “Illegal Using Fake Identity to Live in Florida Pleads Guilty to Clip Full of Crimes” published by Uncovering Florida on January 11, 2025.
A 34-year-old Guatemalan man living in the Orlando area illegally using a fake identity has pleaded guilty to a clip full of crimes — including conspiracy, firearms trafficking, selling firearms without a license, and possessing firearms while being in the country unlawfully.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, between 2023 and 2024, the 34-year-old in question, Sune-Giron, was part of an international gun smuggling ring. His job? He recruited people — known as “straw purchasers” — to buy guns on his behalf, including Glocks, rifles, and AK-47s, from licensed gun dealers across Florida.
