A group of Colombian citizens scammed tens of thousands of dollars from Spanish-speaking immigrants who thought they were appearing in immigration court in front of people they believed were real attorneys and real judges, according to federal prosecutors.
Four defendants were arraigned in New Jersey Saturday after prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing the group of sending immigrants, including people seeking political asylum, into sham proceedings with a fake law firm and a staged courtroom.
The scheme included “dozens” of victims, including at least one person who was deported by the Trump administration after missing their real court hearings to attend fraudulent ones, prosecutors say.
Three of the defendants — Daniela Alejandra Sanchez Ramirez, Jhoan Sebastian Sanchez Ramirez and Alexandra Patricia Sanchez Ramirez — were arrested Friday as they tried to board a Colombia-bound flight from Newark Liberty International Airport, according to prosecutors. A fifth defendant remains at large in Colombia.
They face charges of wire fraud, money laundering and impersonating federal officers.
The group “undermined the integrity of our immigration system by impersonating judges, law enforcement officers, and lawyers,” according to Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
“The defendants engaged in this criminal conduct entirely because of greed, lining their own pockets and those of their coconspirators in Colombia to whom they laundered tens of thousands of dollars of victims’ funds,” prosecutors wrote in court filings.
Their alleged conduct “demonstrated a complete and utter disregard for the potentially life-altering consequences that their actions inflicted on their victims — vulnerable individuals who not only lost significant funds, but also missed their actual immigration court appearances,” according to prosecutors.
From March 2023 through November 2025, the scammers used a fictitious law firm to lure immigrants with pending immigration court cases, then charge victims thousands of dollars for fake services that totaled more than $100,000, prosecutors said.
The scammers would also charge additional fees for legal representation at fake asylum interviews and other appointments that were all part of a network of fraudulent immigration proceedings, the indictment alleges.
Defendants also sent threatening messages to at least one person who discovered the scheme, according to prosecutors.
Lawyers and advocacy groups argue that similar schemes are cropping up as President Donald Trump accelerates an anti-immigration agenda that has overwhelmed federal courts and immigration courthouses in an effort to deport tens of thousands of people from the United States.
Last year, the American Bar Association discovered “multiple” instances of scammers using the names and bar license numbers of legitimate attorneys, and the rise of more sophisticated technology has made scams more difficult to discern as false.
“The increase in fraud cases is attributed to rising enforcement actions and bad actors seeking to take advantage of immigrant communities seeking legal assistance,” according to the group.
“These actions cause irreparable damage to immigration cases, drain immigrants’ limited financial resources and leave victims vulnerable to detention or removal. Victims of immigration services fraud face real and irreversible consequences.”
Unlike federal district courts, the immigration court system functions under the Justice Department at the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Last year, the Justice Department instructed the roughly 600 immigration court judges to dismiss most of the cases that appear before them — making immigrants immediately vulnerable to arrest and “expedited removal” removal from the country with “mandatory detention.”
That strategy has generated scenes of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents patrolling courthouse hallways and hauling away immigrants the moment they leave their hearings.
This month, the Justice Department proposed that the Board of Immigration Appeals should dismiss most of the cases that appear before it, with “summary dismissal” serving as a “default judgment” in virtually every case — a move that immigration advocates warn is eroding due process rights.
