What started as a chance encounter near a taco truck on Edgebrook Street ended with felony charges and a stack of seized immigration paperwork, after Pasadena police say a woman ran a brazen scam on Houston-area families desperate for legal status.
Investigators say Irma Aide Hernandez posed as an immigration official and squeezed nearly $40,000 from multiple families, using a mix of in-person approaches, text messages and WhatsApp chats to crank up the pressure. In one case, a victim told police the suspect even threatened to hurt her family if she went to authorities.
The arrest lands as the region sees a wave of increasingly elaborate immigration-related cons. In one recent case reported by Hoodline, scammers staged a fake ICE Zoom hearing to shake down a Houston mom, a reminder of how far fraudsters will go to mimic real government processes and weaponize fear.
Arrest and allegations
Detectives arrested Hernandez on felony theft and retaliation charges after at least five victims came forward, reporting losses totaling “just under $40,000.” According to investigators, she approached families in public, then followed up through text and WhatsApp, pushing them to send money via Zelle…