The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General today announced two have plead guilty for their roles in a CDL test-taking scheme.
On January 26, 2015, Firdavs Mamadaliev pleaded guilty to Identification Documents Fraud, and on February 2, 2015, Akmal Narzikulov pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit.
In October 2013, eleven defendants were indicted in Brooklyn, New York for their role in a “widespread fraudulent Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) test-taking scheme.”
An investigation found that at five DMV testings centers in New York, CDL applicants paid between $1,800 to $2,500 for CDL test answers and other assistance in the CDL certification process.
The OIG says the scheme was high-tech. Test takers were issued pencil that were encoded with test answers and that the test takers were also given Bluetooth headsets to communicate test answers.
“Surveillance operations, including the use of remote observation posts and pole-cams, identified the defendants participating in the fraud scheme, including DMV security personnel, an external test-taker, facilitators, ‘runners,’ and lookouts,” the OIG states.
The OIG states that “Mamadaliev was utilized as a ‘lookout’ by one of the key facilitators at the DMV facilities and Narzikulov was identified as a key facilitator in the test-cheating scheme.”
Eleven people were indicted in the scheme: Marie Daniel, Joachim L. Pierre, Luc Desmangles, Tanael Daniel, Jose Payano, Dale Harper, Akmal Narzikulov, LaToya Bourne, Beayaeh Kamara, Firdavs Mamadaliev, and Inocente Rene’ Gonzalez.