A citizen of the Dominican Republic has admitted guilt to fraud and immigration charges in federal court, according to an announcement from David X. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
Kelvin Prado-Robles, also known as Frankely Robles-Guzman, 49, entered his guilty plea on July 23 in New Haven. Authorities stated that Prado-Robles has never held legal status in the United States. He was previously sentenced in Delaware for false representation of citizenship, passport fraud, and identity theft in 2008 and deported to the Dominican Republic in February 2009. After being arrested again by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Newark, New Jersey in February 2011, he was deported a second time that September.
Despite these removals, Prado-Robles illegally reentered the U.S., where he became involved with Domingo St. Hilaire Rosario and Jamie Pinto beginning in late 2017. The group used stolen identities to acquire vehicles and motorcycles at dealerships across Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. According to court documents and statements made during proceedings:
“Rosario arranged for a car or motorcycle to be purchased or leased from a dealership in the name of an identity theft victim, and Prado-Robles or Pinto impersonated the identity theft victim at the dealership to complete the paperwork. Rosario supplied his co-conspirators with fraudulent identification documents bearing the victim’s personal identifying information, and with a fraudulent photo identification that contained the identifying information of the victim and a photograph of a co-conspirator. The conspirators intended to sell or export the vehicles.”
The scheme resulted in at least 13 vehicles being obtained fraudulently; law enforcement recovered some of them for return to dealers. Dealerships lost more than $200,000 due to these activities.
Both Rosario and Prado-Robles fled back to the Dominican Republic around 2018. In June 2023, authorities arrested Prado-Robles under another name—Kelvin Prado-Roble—in New Mexico on illegal reentry charges; he pleaded guilty there as well and received a ten-month prison sentence last November before being transferred to Connecticut this June.
Prado-Robles now faces sentencing on October 31 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud—which carries up to twenty years imprisonment—and reentry of a removed alien—with up to ten years possible.
His co-defendants have already been sentenced: Rosario was extradited from the Dominican Republic in May 2020 after pleading guilty; he received sixty-five months’ imprisonment later that year. Pinto pleaded guilty as well; he was sentenced shortly afterward to sixty months’ imprisonment.
The case is being investigated by multiple agencies including the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), with support from local law enforcement such as Vernon Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Anastasia E. King is prosecuting.
