HOUSTON (KIAH) — A large scale conspiracy to sell fraudulent Texas license plates has come to an end as the final man accused in the scheme has been ordered to prison after pleading guilty. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Texas, 35-year-old Emmanuel Padilla Reyes will serve 60 months in a federal prison for his part.
“This case led not only to arrests and prison sentences for those behind a national multimillion-dollar scheme, but it also led to changes in the way temporary tags are issued in Texas,” Special Agent Douglas Williams said.
Using stolen identities and aliases, the agency believes Reyes and his co-conspirators made more than 550,000 fraudulent car registration tags and sold them through social messaging apps and the internet, allowing buyers to evade registration, insurance and law enforcement detection, enabling crimes such as robberies and drive-by shootings…