A Brazilian national illegally residing in Danbury, Connecticut, was sentenced for conspiring to obtain driver’s licenses for ineligible applicants, primarily illegal aliens.
According to a release from the Massachusetts Department of Justice, U.S. District Court Judge Margaret R. Guzman sentenced 41-year-old Helbert Costa Generoso to nine months in prison. After serving the sentence, the defendant faces deportation. In June 2025, Helbert Costa Generoso pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to unlawfully produce and possess identification documents with the aim to transfer them, as well as one count of providing a fraudulent passport to another for use. Costa Generoso was accused in December 2024, along with four co-conspirators.
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From November 2020 to September 2024, Costa Generoso and his accused co-conspirators illegally obtained driver’s licenses for illegal alien customers who lived in states that forbade illegal aliens from acquiring driver’s licenses. Prior to July 2023, illegal aliens living in Massachusetts were not eligible to receive driver’s licenses. Beginning January 2019, illegal aliens residing in New York were able to receive driver’s licenses.
Costa Generoso and his alleged co-conspirators conspired to fraudulently obtain New York driver’s licenses for illegal alien customers who did not reside in New York, including Massachusetts residents, and, after July 2023, Massachusetts driver’s licenses for illegal alien customers who did not live in Massachusetts. In exchange for fraudulently obtaining driver’s licenses, the co-conspirators allegedly charged each consumer around $1,400. Costa Generoso allegedly charged $1,400 to get false foreign passports in the customers’ names, which would be used as identification in driver’s license applications.
In New York, before acquiring a driver’s license, applicants had to pass a written permit test and finish the driver’s education curriculum at a New York driving school. The New York Department of Motor Vehicles (NY DMV) requires online permit exam takers to take a picture of themselves with a web camera while taking the test. This was done to ensure that the test-taker was the applicant and that no one was sitting with or assisting the applicant throughout the test.
To avoid having the customers complete the permit tests, the co-conspirators reportedly colluded to collect many images of them sitting down, making it appear as if they were completing the exams. They also allegedly conspired to complete the permit tests for the customers online, and when prompted by the NY DMV to take pictures during the tests, they uploaded the pictures that the customers had previously provided, claiming that the customers were taking the tests, not the defendants. Costa Generoso and his accused co-defendants also collaborated to fabricate false driver’s education completion certificates, reportedly from New York driving schools, and to falsify the signatures of driving school employees on the bogus certificates.
The NY DMV also required applicants to appear at a NY DMV location and present documents proving their identification and domicile in New York. The co-conspirators reportedly planned to meet Massachusetts-based consumers at various locations in Massachusetts, usually many at a time, and drive them to NY DMV branch locations. When they arrived at the NY DMV facilities, the defendants allegedly supplied the customers counterfeit paperwork that falsely claimed to show that they lived in New York. The clients presented these forged records to the NY DMV staff, and the NY DMV used the misrepresentations to issue New York driver’s licenses to them. The co-conspirators allegedly plotted to have the NY DMV ship the permits to sites controlled by the defendants in New York, where the permits were then delivered to the consumers in person. The defendants then allegedly arranged to schedule road driving license tests for the consumers with the NY DMV and then drove them to New York to take the tests. If the consumers passed the examinations, the NY DMV shipped the driver’s licenses to mailing addresses in New York that the defendants allegedly controlled, and the defendants then handed them over to the customers.
The defendants allegedly conspired to obtain Massachusetts driver’s licenses for out-of-state residents in a similar fashion to how they obtained New York licenses for Massachusetts citizens. The co-conspirators reportedly illegally applied for licenses for over 1,000 customers, secured licenses for over 600 of them, and received at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Costa Generoso is the second defendant to plead guilty in this case. In September 2025, defendant Cesar Agusto Martin Reis was sentenced to time served (290 days in prison) for his involvement in the conspiracy.
The announcement was made by United States Attorney Leah B. Foley, Michael J. Krol, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New England, and Kelly Larco-Ward, Inspector in Charge of the United States Postal Inspection Service’s Boston Division. The New York DMV Division of Field Investigation, the Boston, Danbury, and Waterbury Police Departments, the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut, and the New York State Inspector General’s Office all gave valuable help. Brendan O’Shea, Assistant United States Attorney for the Worcester Branch Office, is prosecuting the case.
The details in the charge filings are allegations. The remaining defendants are assumed innocent unless and until they are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in court.
