Illegal alien federally charged with identity theft, voter fraud, and passport fraud after allegedly using American citizen's identity to vote

Date: March 27, 2026

Contact: [email protected]

An illegal alien from Mexico was federally charged with identity theft, voter fraud, and passport fraud for allegedly assuming the identity of an American citizen, announced United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Ryan Raybould.

Eliseo Morales-Tapia, a citizen of Mexico residing illegally in the United States, was charged by federal complaint on March 20, 2026. According to the complaint, Morales-Tapia obtained a Texas driver's license, a Texas identification card, a social security card, and a United States passport, using the identity of another individual who resides in Chicago, Illinois. Morales-Tapia is alleged to have presented the victim's birth certificate, social security number, and other documents to obtain these identification documents. Most recently, according to the complaint, in Oct. 2025, Morales-Tapia checked "yes" to questions asking if he was a U.S. citizen and if he wanted to vote when he updated his address for the Texas driver's license that he had obtained years earlier in the victim's name. As the complaint alleges, in 2025, Morales-Tapia also renewed the passport he had obtained in the victim's name in 2015. Additionally, according to the complaint, Morales-Tapia voted in an election in Tarrant County on Nov. 5, 2024, utilizing the victim's identity.

Morales-Tapia appeared before a United States Magistrate Judge on March 25, 2026, for an initial appearance on the charges. He remains in federal custody pending further court proceedings. If convicted, Morales-Tapia faces a maximum sentence of twenty years' imprisonment, with up to five years' imprisonment on each of the identity theft and voter fraud counts and up to ten years' imprisonment on the passport fraud count.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation Dallas Field Office investigated the case with assistance from the IRS, the Diplomatic Security Service, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Frisco Police Department, and the Richardson Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Capoccia is handling the prosecution.

IRS-CI is the law enforcement arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. It is the only federal law enforcement agency with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code. IRS-CI has 18 field offices located across the U.S. and maintains an international presence through attaché posts abroad.