Chicago — A gung-ho Lawndale resident who didn’t like having his mail stolen led Chicago police to a trio of men who allegedly told police that they stole mail as documentation to help them get an apartment, prosecutors said Wednesday. But the men have bigger problems now. Prosecutors say all three possessed phony Social Security cards and Green Cards that were rife with misspellings and other red flags.
Chicago police first responded to a 911 call from the homeowner, who said he saw people stealing his mail via a doorbell camera on Tuesday. He got into his car and followed the men as they fled in a blue van, then waved down an officer who was responding to his call for help, a prosecutor said.
The man directed police to a nearby van and told officers the men inside stole his mail. Police determined that the license plate on the van was suspended, so they pulled the vehicle over, prosecutors continued.
Mario Chub Caal, 40, was allegedly behind the wheel without a valid ID or insurance. Rony Chub Caal, 21, and Yoni Chub Caal, 20, were riding along.Â
Prosecutors said that, while Mario did not have a valid driver’s license, he did have two Social Security cards with names and numbers that didn’t belong to him, along with two permanent resident cards matching the Social Security information.
According to the allegations, the other two men also had fake Social Security cards with matching Green Cards. Prosecutors said the allegedly fake documents all had misspelled words, discolorations, and formatting that is “not consistent” with genuine Social Security cards and Green Cards.
All three men allegedly told police they needed the mail to get an apartment.
During a bail hearing on Wednesday afternoon, a prosecutor told Judge David Navarro that Mario Chub Caal had been charged with “alien inadmissibility under Section 212” of the federal code in Texas in 2019. But an FBI report did not have a disposition of the matter, the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor said that Yoni Chub Caal had the same notation from 2022 on his FBI background sheet. And Rony Chub Caal was charged with “alien removal under Sections 212 and 237” in Texas in October, according to the prosecutor’s review of FBI records. The paperwork did not list dispositions for the matters.
All three men were born in Guatemala, officials said. They are each charged with felony possession of fraudulent ID cards.
Assistant Public Defender Suzin Farber said Mario Chub Caal has lived in Chicago for two years and has five children, two of whom live in the city. He is a full-time factory worker with no criminal convictions, she said.
Yoni, also a factory worker with no criminal background, has lived in Chicago for two months, she said. Rony also lives in the city and works at a factory, Farber said. He has no criminal background.
Judge Navarro released the men on their own recognizance and ordered them to appear in court again on January 4.
Last week, prosecutors charged another man with possessing a cache of fake IDs, passports, and credit cards issued in different names after police allegedly caught him burglarizing an Edgewater storage facility.
The man, Jacob Mallander, was on probation for allegedly possessing another collection of IDs and credit cards in others’ names. Two days before Mallander was arrested last week, a website posted his obituary.
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