MIAMI — A 63-year-old Nicaraguan national has been extradited from Costa Rica to face federal charges in two indictments alleging he manufactured and sold counterfeit U.S. passports to individuals in South Florida and trafficked in counterfeit U.S. currency, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced.
Armando Morales Obando, who had been residing in Costa Rica, allegedly conspired with others between January and June 2020 to produce and sell five fraudulent U.S. passports, coordinating payments totaling $5,500 and arranging shipment of the documents from Nicaragua to Broward County. The counterfeit passports allegedly contained the identifying information of real individuals but bore photographs of other persons and were represented as valid documents for international travel.
In a related scheme, Morales Obando and co-conspirators allegedly created $20,000 in counterfeit U.S. currency and exchanged it for $6,000 in genuine U.S. currency. He faces two counts of passport fraud, two counts of aggravated identity theft, two counts of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, and one count of uttering counterfeit currency across the two indictments.
If convicted, Morales Obando faces up to 20 years in federal prison on the counterfeit currency count, up to 10 years in prison on each passport fraud count, up to five years in prison on each conspiracy count, and a mandatory consecutive two-year sentence on each aggravated identity theft count.
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida, Special Agent in Charge Ryan McSeveney of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service Miami Field Office, and Acting Special Agent in Charge José R. Figueroa of Homeland Security Investigations Miami announced the case. The Costa Rican government provided assistance in securing the extradition. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Maultasch is prosecuting both cases, with investigative support from the DSS Overseas Criminal Investigations Unit at U.S. Embassy San José and the U.S. Secret Service.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Court documents are available under case numbers 24-cr-20431 and 24-cr-20552 in the Southern District of Florida.