I just got word from a buddy in the New Mexico Game and Fish Department about grand jury indictments in an alleged massive, illegal elk tag forgery case involving an outfitter and his wife.
Remember, an indictment does not mean guilt. An indictment means a case has enough facts presented to take it to the trial stage.
The two are accused of forging bogus elk tags and then selling them to unwitting out-of-state elk hunters. The tags were part of a an elk hunting package deal.
Adrian Romero, 33, and his wife, Henrietta Romero, 32, were indicted by the Cibola County Grand Jury on Jan. 25 in a huge case involving 66 felony charges. The pair operated a business known as Non-Typical Outfitters. The business was located in Cibola County.
I was a bureau newspaper reporter in Grants, New Mexico, working for The Independent in Gallup, when I first broke the story in 2004.
The alleged felonies include racketeering, forgery, fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement chrages.
While doing the story in 2004, I talked with a law abiding outfitter I know. It floored me that someone would allegedly make their own elk tags, sell them to unsuspecting hunters all in the name of greed. He told me he felt it was just a matter of time before someone started printing their own tags. New Mexico studies show that the hunting and wildlife industry bring an estimated $1 billion a year into the state. It could be happening in other states as well.
What is also sad in this case, the Romero's, if found guilty or convicted, will probably not spend any time in jail. Unfortunately, the judicial system in Cibola County lacks backbone when it comes to handing down prison sentences.
If you want to read the story, go the the New Mexico Game and Fish Department website at www.wildlife.state.nm.us and look at the story under the press releases.

Greed has no bounds, and it should come as no surprise that the hunting, fishing and trapping community have a few bad apples. It is without doubt that even organized crime has found a lucrative market in such areas as the trafficing of endangered species. Unfortunately, cases such as this rarely make the front page because they don't have the appeal to urbanites that they need to sell stories.

There are probably plenty of other scams going on around the country, but I think that many people find it easier to "look the other way" rather than to report violations unless they affect them directly.

We'll keep our fingers crossed that justice prevails.

Here's the direct link to the story:

http://www.wildlife.state.nm.us/publications/press_rele...ts/1026grandjury.htm

erict- isn't it amazing that something as unusual as this isn't a huge story nationally. news organizations will pick up stories which have an unusual slant. Here we have a couple who allegedly counterfeited elk tags to bring in more money from guided hunts. how unusual is that? when I was working for The Independent there stories were front page news, but in Albuquerque the way the story played was almost as an also-ran. i think if the federal government took a good look at the whole affair, there could be federal charges as well. people from one end of the United States to the other end of it got caught up in this alleged scam. oh well, thanks for allowing me to vent. Tom Purdom

I hope all the poaching cheating idiots in NM get stiffer fines. They need to strip gun ownership rights as well hunting privliges in my opinion. It is out of control here. Thanks for allowing me to vent, I am better now.

I imagine the tax evasion charges will be enough to give them the jail sentences they likely deserve.

$bob$

LDHunter: It would be nice to assume the pair would get jail time, but don't count on it. They are charged in Cibola County. At one time I went to the women's prison there on a story. Inmates there have access to newspapers, and thus the punishments handed out by the judicial system there. Even the inmates say that there is no justice in Cibola County. Judges, who have the authority to either accept, or not accept, plea bargain deals, routinely sentenced people caught to violating their probation to more probation. In other areas of the United States, probation violation means a person goes back to prison, but not in Cibola County. The state povides that in DWI cases, when a person reaches the third DWI conviction, he, or she, will have a felony conviction on their records. The law requires a minimum of six months in jail and a maximum of 18 months. The system in Cibola County appears to opt for the six month rule, even when people have far more than three convictions. They even allow house arrest and wearing an ankle bracelet as serving the six months behind bars minimum. Believe me, it is as though substantial prison sentences for convicted felons are the exception rather than the rule. It is a sad, but true situation there. Tom Purdom

I don't want to start a war, or be attacked for asking a philosophical question, which is: how is what these folks have done much different from a state that has a draw system but guarentees a tag to anyone who pays a higher fee and hires an outfitter.

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
I don't want to start a war, or be attacked for asking a philosophical question, which is: how is what these folks have done much different from a state that has a draw system but guarentees a tag to anyone who pays a higher fee and hires an outfitter.

Guaranteed licenses for outfitters and their clients is BS in my book. However, I can't see how that justifies counterfieting licenses. These people broke the law to make a buck, it's that simple. They need to be treated like the criminals they are. If they were counterfieting money, they'd be headed to the hole for a long time. These people shouldn't get off lightly.

This state just never ceases to amaze me!

quote:

Originally posted by 22WRF:
I don't want to start a war, or be attacked for asking a philosophical question, which is: how is what these folks have done much different from a state that has a draw system but guarentees a tag to anyone who pays a higher fee and hires an outfitter.

Your perception of this is not entirely correct. Outfitters in NM are not guaranteed tags. Land owners who have a viable elk (deer or pronghorn) population on their property are issued landowner permits the number of which depends on how much land and how many animals are residing on your property.

The land owners are then allowed to sell those land owner permits for whatever the market will bear. The outfitters buys the permits from the landowner. The outfitter than sells his hunt and is able to "guarantee" tags. the hunter still has to buy a NM hunting license. It is also possible to buy landowner permits directly from the land owner in many cases bypassing the outfitter entirely. The NMDGF has a public list of all the landowner tags issued in NM along with contact information.

The other thing is an out of state hunter gets a 10% higher odds of drawing if he uses the services of an outfitter and states so on his application.

I am not condoning any of these regulations just trying to clear the water a bit about how it works in NM. I was a registered guide in NM. To become an outfitter you must work as a guide for three years under an outfitter before you can obtain your outfitters license and book clients on your own.

Adrian Romero was not even a licensed outfitter. He was forging his documents under a legitimate outfitters name without that outfitters knowledge so he could book the hunts himself.