Chicago scheme simulated armed robberies to obtain US crime victims visas

A federal case unsealed in Chicago exposed an immigration fraud scheme based on staged armed robberies. According to the report presented by the panel on the Fox News program Gutfeld!, hundreds of robberies in the city were not real: the shooters were fake, the crime was paid for and the victims participated in the plan.

According to the program, a man was sentenced to two years in prison for helping to organize hundreds of these fake armed robberies between 2022 and 2024. He allegedly paid stores to host the stagings, hired fake shooters and guided the alleged victims, who paid up to US$30,000 each to be "robbed".

How the scheme worked

The objective, as described in the attraction, was to obtain visas for victims of crimes who collaborate with police investigations. People registered the incident, cooperated with the police and then applied for a visa based on this story.

Presenter Tom Shillue stated that the actors sold the scene well: masked men entered stores with weapons and demanded wallets, and even beat the victims to make it look real. According to him, in 2023 one of the fake robbers would have shot a real store employee in the stomach, after taking his action too far. This episode was presented as an allegation, as a joke, and was not detailed.

The panel assessment

For Shillue, the case shows how easy it is to circumvent the system to enter the United States, and he criticized the coverage from part of the press, which, in his opinion, treats those who follow the rules as villains. The presenter cited as an example a report from the 60 Minutes program about a Malian man deported after 25 years in the country. According to Shillue, the article omitted that he had falsely claimed to be gay in his asylum application.

Comedian Joe DeVito said he found it curious that the scheme worked precisely in Chicago, a city that, in his opinion, is notorious for its abundance of armed robberies. Columnist Kat Timpf defined the plot as "very elaborate" and said she didn't think any of it was easy to execute. She commented that people accepted going through all this just to stay in the country.

A member of the panel stated that similar practices had already been found in Ohio, based on a video released months ago. According to her, groups would guide migrants to tell the judge that they are gay, and there would be collusion with a magistrate. The transcript does not provide proof of this allegation, which should be read as the panel's opinion.

What to watch out for

The program has a humor and commentary format, and is not about the market, interest rates or exchange rates. Still, the case fuels the debate about inspection, immigration rules and the integrity of public processes in the United States, a topic that usually occupies the American political agenda. The transcript does not contain data on costs to the government or economic impact, and the outcome of the case depends on information that is not included in the material analyzed.

Automatically translated from Portuguese.