Colorado Attorney General John Suthers has teamed with federal prosecutors, the Federal Trade Commission, lawyers’ groups, immigrant advocate organizations and other state prosecutors in a new nationwide effort to crack down on immigration-services fraud.
The broadly coordinated national effort announced Thursday includes an advertising blitz to alert immigrants how to avoid fake lawyers and immigration consultants and an effort on the part of prosecutors to file more criminal charges to serve as a deterrent.
Suthers issued a statement Thursday encouraging consumers who have been victimized by phony immigration consultants or attorneys to lodge a complaint with his office.
Over the last two years, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office has investigated and prosecuted two immigration consultant groups that had been operating out of Colorado Springs. Charles Doucette and his Immigration Center company and Joseph Corrigan and his Simply Done Immigration firm settled out of court, agreeing to cease operations and pay back consumers.
But Doucette moved his business to Nevada where the attorney general’s office there filed new criminal charges and the Federal Trade Commission, working with Suthers’ office, filed a lawsuit against Doucette.
Mike Saccone, spokesman for Suthers’ office, said the office currently is not working on any new immigration-services fraud cases.
“Awareness is the main thrust of what we’re doing now,” he said.
