Five residents of Louisville, Kentucky have officially been charged with fraud and money laundering for their involvement in an alleged conspiracy to sell driver’s licenses to individuals who are in the country legally, but are not U.S. citizens, to help them avoid testing requirements in the state. The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Kentucky put out a press release saying the defendants have been arraigned in a federal court.
The scheme allegedly took place between November 2023 and October 2024, according to court documents. The indictment of the five suspects follows accusations that were made in a 2025 whistleblower lawsuit that alleges temporary contract workers were issuing non-citizens driver’s licenses fraudulently. Kentucky Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, along with GOP Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, spoke with reporters in August 2025 about a probe that had been launched into the allegations before media reports broke about the lawsuit.
In a statement released on February 10, 2026, Beshear said because the “integrity of this investigation and licensing” was a top priority for his administration, they opted not to make public comments about it “until all the facts were available.” The release then made it clear that the licenses were not issued to those who were in the country illegally.
According to The Kentucky Lantern, Beshear’s statement also said, “Thanks to the hard work and dedication of law enforcement and state and federal offices, we now have the facts when it comes to this case and we are ready to hold those who violated the law responsible.” Two of the five defendants, Donnita Wilson, 32, and Aariel Matthews, 27, were hired to work within the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Division of Driver Licensing through a contract employment agency.
The indictment reveals that the other defendants in the case, Raul Tellez Ojeda, 32, Lazaro Alejandro Castello Rojas, 37, and Robert Danger Correa, 41, were not contracted to work within the Transportation Cabinet and recruited legally present non-citizens as part of the money making scheme. U.S. Attorney Kyle Baumgarner said the scheme involved the receipt of kickbacks and bribes that led to the unlawful issuing of drivers licenses to non-U.S. citizens.
“Proper vetting of individuals seeking a driver’s license is a prerequisite to ensuring the safety of Kentucky’s roadways and ensuring the legitimacy of state-issued identification,” Baumgarner continued. The defendants in the scheme would gain the trust of these individuals by claiming to be knowledgeable about the process of obtaining a driver’s license, appealing to them by communicating to them in their own language and claiming to have the same country of origin.
Most of the individuals who were issued the licenses were not familiar with the actual process of obtaining a driver’s license and had difficulty speaking English. The defendants promised to expedite the process for the non-citizens for a fee that ranged from $200 to $1,500. The defendants who worked in the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet would abuse their access to issue licenses to provide the individuals with what looked like valid driver’s licenses.
"*" indicates required fields
The governor’s office announced new measures were being taken to prevent similar schemes from happening in the future. The measures include “enhanced” training, tracking the issuing of credentials across states, and creating a “reporting procedure” with local law enforcement departments. If the defendants are convicted, they could face a maximum prison sentence of 20 years for each count of fraud and money laundering.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video