DMV Workers Among 19 Arrested in Driver's License Scam - East Idaho News
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DMV Workers Among 19 Arrested in Driver’s License Scam

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N 092613 DrivLicScam?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1380217676395Photo Courtesy: NY State Inspector General(NEW YORK) — It was code, “a series of dots and dashes” etched into the sides of pencils, cheaters used to take tests for a license to operate a school bus, a tractor-trailer or heavy equipment, federal and state investigators said.   

Nineteen people have been arrested and charged in the driver’s license scam, among them three security guards for the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles who were caught on surveillance cameras accepting cash bribes of up to $4,000.

“It’s potential school bus licenses, tractor trailers, tow trucks, tanker trailers, doubles, triples, the most dangerous vehicles on the road,” said New York State Inspector General Catherine Leahy Scott, whose office was tipped to the alleged scheme by confidential informants.

Three DMV security guards and eight others were charged with orchestrating the scam and accused by Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York of enabling “unqualified drivers to take to our roads and highways behind the wheel of large buses and heavy trucks.”

Eight people were charged with cheating on the commercial driver’s license exam by paying cash for the pencils engraved with the coded answers or for a proxy to take the test.

“The eight commercial drivers who paid someone else to take their tests took the easy way out,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.

Investigators said as many as 250 commercial drivers licenses were issued to people who cheated and they are now being sought.  The DMV said it has strengthened its procedures and will eventually eliminate the paper test that was the focus of the scam.

“It is indeed unfortunate that people continue to look for ways to cheat on written tests,” said New York State DMV Commissioner Barbara Fiala.

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