{"id":37348,"date":"2025-02-07T17:13:27","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T22:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/?p=37348"},"modified":"2025-02-07T17:13:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T22:13:27","slug":"indy-man-sentenced-to-3-years-probation-for-manufacturing-and-mailing-30000-fake-ids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/2025\/02\/07\/indy-man-sentenced-to-3-years-probation-for-manufacturing-and-mailing-30000-fake-ids\/","title":{"rendered":"Indy Man Sentenced to 3 Years Probation for Manufacturing and Mailing 30,000 Fake IDs"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS\u2014 2\/5\/25 – James Watt, 26, of Indianapolis, has been sentenced to 3 years of probation after pleading guilty to unlawful production of document or authentication feature and money laundering.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, between March 13, 2019, and February 16, 2023, James Watt worked for a public website that allowed customers to purchase fake driver\u2019s licenses, paid for mostly by Bitcoin. The website\u2019s tag line boasted \u201cYour #1 Trusted Source for Fake IDs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the course of four years, Watt manufactured more than 30,000 fraudulent driver\u2019s licenses and other forms of false identification. Customers would upload photos of themselves and an address to which to send the new I.D. Watt then mailed the false identifications via U.S. Postal Service collection boxes throughout Indianapolis, usually late at night to avoid detection.<\/p>\n

In exchange for this work, Watt was paid more than 14 Bitcoin. As of January 16, 2025, 14 bitcoin was worth more than $1.3 million.<\/p>\n

Although many of the fake IDs were purchased by underage college students, many IDs were purchased by adults far older than 21, implying their use for another nefarious purpose. Identification is needed to board a plane, buy cough medicine, rent a car, open a bank account, apply for government assistance, pick-up a prescription, visit a casino, and purchase a firearm. Through Watt\u2019s help, his customers were able to get fake identifications for all these purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWatt nearly became a millionaire simply through the manufacturing and mailing of thousands of fake IDs, essentially running a one-man BMV,\u201d said John E. Childress, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana. \u201cWhile Watt was not the operator of the website, he had a far more critical role, utilizing equipment and skill to manufacture quality fake identifications and brazenly violate the law thousands of times over. I commend the IRS-CI and USPIS for their thorough investigative work leading to today\u2019s outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am proud of our inspectors who work so diligently to protect the mail from being utilized to further illicit activities,\u201d said Acting Inspector in Charge Felicia George. \u201cThanks to our collaborative investigative efforts with IRS-CI, we were able to identify and take down part of a large-scale operation, while also seizing the proceeds of it from our area of responsibility. I would like to thank the inspectors, agents, and AUSA Eakman for their hard work on this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Postal Investigation Service and IRS Criminal Investigation investigated this case. The sentence was imposed by U.S. District Judge James P. Hanlon.<\/p>\n

Acting U.S. Attorney Childress thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Eakman, who prosecuted this case.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS\u2014 2\/5\/25 – James Watt, 26, of Indianapolis, has been sentenced to 3 years of probation after pleading guilty to unlawful production of document or authentication feature and money laundering. According to court documents, between March 13, 2019, and February 16, 2023, James Watt worked for a public website that allowed customers to purchase fake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-postal-crime","last_archivepost"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37348"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37348\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37349,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37348\/revisions\/37349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/postalemployeenetwork.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}