Man sentenced for conspiring to obtain more than 1,000 New York and Massachusetts driver’s licenses for ineligible applicants

A Brazilian national was recently sentenced on conspiracy charges related to helping more than 1,000 ineligible applicants apply to obtain a driver’s license in New York.

On September 26, 2025, Cesar Agusto Martin Reis, 28, was sentenced to time served (290 days in prison). He is now subject to deportation proceedings, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.

Officials said that that Cesar Agusto Martin Reis was residing illegally in Waterbury, Connecticut.

In June 2025, Cesar Agusto Martin Reis pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to unlawfully produce and possess with intent to transfer identification documents and one count of possession with intent to use or transfer unlawfully identification documents after being charged alongside four co-conspirators in December 2024.

Officials say that between November 2020 and September 2024, Cesar Agusto Martin Reis and his alleged co-conspirators fraudulently applied for driver’s licenses for more than 1,000 ineligible applicants, obtained licenses for more than 600 of those applicants, and collected “at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“Prior to July 2023, illegal aliens residing in Massachusetts were not permitted to obtain Massachusetts driver’s licenses. Beginning in 2019, illegal aliens residing in New York became eligible to obtain New York driver’s licenses. Cesar Agusto Martin Reis and his alleged co-conspirators conspired to fraudulently obtain New York driver’s licenses for illegal alien customers who did not reside in New York, including Massachusetts residents, and after July 2023 to fraudulently obtain Massachusetts driver’s licenses for illegal alien customers who did not reside in Massachusetts. In exchange for fraudulently obtaining the driver’s licenses, Cesar Agusto Martin Reis and his alleged co-conspirators typically charged approximately $1,400 per customer. On February 4, 2024, Cesar Agusto Martin Reis was found with 50 of these fraudulently produced driver’s licenses during a traffic stop in Bedford, Massachusetts,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

The New York Department of Motor Vehicles (NY DMV) requires online permit test-takers to take photos of themselves with webcams to ensure that the test-taker was in fact the applicant and that there was not a person sitting with and helping the applicant with the test.  

As part of the scheme, Cesar Agusto Martin Reis allegedly obtained and uploaded photos of the ineligible applicants sitting down, which made it appear that they were taking written permit tests when in fact the co-conspirators were completing those tests.

Cesar Agusto Martin Reis and his co-conspirators are further accused of creating fraudulent driver’s education certificates of completion, purportedly from New York driving schools, forging the signatures of driving school staff on the fake certificates and giving these documents to their customers to provide to the NY DMV.

“The NY DMV also required that applicants appear at a NY DMV location and provide documents to prove their identity and residence in New York. Cesar Agusto Martin Reis conspired with his alleged co-conspirators to meet Massachusetts-based customers at locations in Massachusetts – typically several customers at a time – and drive them to NY DMV branch locations. When they arrived at the NY DMV locations, the defendants allegedly gave the customers fraudulent documents falsely purporting to demonstrate that the customers resided in New York. The customers provided these fake records to the NY DMV staff, and the NY DMV relied on the misrepresentations to issue New York driving permits to the customers. Cesar Agusto Martin Reis conspired with his alleged co-conspirators to arrange for the NY DMV to mail the permits to locations in New York that were controlled by the defendants and provided the permits to the customers in-person. Additionally, the defendants allegedly conspired to schedule road driving license tests for the customers with the NY DMV and, again, drive the customers to New York for them to take the road tests. If the customers passed the tests, the NY DMV sent the driver’s licenses to mailing addresses in New York that the defendants allegedly controlled, and the defendants then provided the licenses to the customers,” officials said.

Cesar Agusto Martin Reis and the co-conspirators are also accused of conspiracy to obtain Massachusetts driver’s licenses for out-of-state residents, “in generally the same manner as they allegedly obtained the New York licenses for Massachusetts residents.”

Agencies assisting in the investigation include Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, NY DMV Division of Field Investigation, Boston, Danbury (Connecticut) and Waterbury (Connecticut) Police Departments, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut, and the New York State Inspector General’s Office.