MCALLEN, Texas — A Brazilian man who had been previously deported after getting convicted of mail fraud and scamming airlines has been arrested in Texas for illegally coming back to America.
Court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed that 29-year-old Pedro Igor Duarte was arrested on December 23 by U.S. Border Patrol agents after rafting over the Rio Grande. For that offense, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dorina Ramos sentenced him to 150 days in prison.
Soon after his arrest, another federal judge in Masachusets moved to have Duarte transferred to his district to begin procedings against him over a supervised release violation.
The supervised release (federal term similar to probation) is part of his March 6, 2014 sentence on federal fraud charges. In that case he was sentenced to two years in prison and three years of supervised release.
According to information provided by the FBI following Duarte’s sentencing from October 2007 to April 2009, Duarte flew on various airlines and would then file claims alleging the airline had lost his baggage when in fact he had collected it. Following the claim, the individual airlines would send him a check to cover the claim. The airlines that Duarte scammed included Continental Airlines, American Airlines, and AirTran Airways (now Southwest Airlines).
In addition to ripping off the airlines, Duarte had flown to Florida where he used fake passports and documents to open a bank account to use and deposit fake U.S. Post Office money orders.
While Duarte was set to be sentenced in January, 2014, he in fact fled but the U.S. Marshal’s Service got a bench warrant and got the man to turn himself in just a month later. After his sentence, Duarte was taken by immigration authorities who then deported him after he lost his legal status.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.