By STAN MADDUX

Indiana Correspondent

KNIGHTSTOWN, Ind. — Residents of Honduras allegedly armed with counterfeit identification cards to portray themselves as legally in the United States were arrested at an Indiana farm.

According to authorities, the IDs contained false Social Security numbers and permanent residency status to make it seem they were U.S citizens. The suspects were taken into custody April 12 at a farm in Knightstown, after police received a tip from a bank where the ID cards were used to open accounts at the direction of their employer so he could pay them by direct deposit.

Knightstown Police Chief Christopher Newkirk said the farm owner, Ryan Hammer, is not suspected of knowingly hiring the illegal immigrants. He said Hammer would not have instructed them to open bank accounts had he known they were in violation of U.S. customs laws.

On April 9, police said Hammer entered First Merchants Bank with six men he identified as employees wanting to open checking accounts. Newkirk said the authentic-looking cards fooled a teller and branch manager at the bank where the accounts were opened.

He said the corporate bank office in Greenwood was alerted the next day after the Social Security numbers came back to individuals whose identities had been stolen.

Newkirk said law enforcement at the state and federal levels are involved to start the deportation process and to try to uncover further specifics such as who made and distributed the counterfeit IDs. “We don’t know how they obtained them yet,” he said.

He said the fake IDs might be linked to traffickers charging foreigners hefty fees to get into the country illegally, and high interest on money borrowed for their services. Some traffickers collect a percentage of what undocumented workers earn until their debt is paid entirely and use that debt as leverage to keep them working and making payments, Newkirk explained.

Santos Antunez Argueta, 49, Hector Funez, 31, Juan Martin, 36, Enrique Zelaya, 22, and Enrique Banegas, 56, were being held in the Henry County Jail at press time. All of the suspects from the Central American country are facing charges related to counterfeiting; a second count of resisting law enforcement was leveled against two of the individuals.

Newkirk said two of the suspects were deported once before on felony arrests while a third is presently wanted on a warrant from another state. Each of the suspects has some type of previous contact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

According to police, the suspects were out in the fields when Hammer – CEO of Crazy Horse Hops located at 8875 S. 925 West – instructed them to come into a barn on the farm. Plainclothes officers were waiting for them. Two suspects and one other employee whose legal residency status has not been confirmed, Jose Meza, took off running toward the woods.

Newkirk said three dozen or more officers from multiple agencies helped form and maintain a large perimeter around the search area throughout the K-9-led manhunt. It took about three hours to locate the suspects, who kept causing the dogs to lose their scent by running back and forth through a creek.

He said an Indiana State Police helicopter was about to fly out to assist in the search just as the men were taken at gunpoint.

Newkirk said the addresses listed on each piece of fake identification were all from Indianapolis and he believes the suspects were making the 40-mile one-way commute to work at the farm – but that the stolen ID victims were from different parts of the country.

“They were not local. They were from all over,” he noted.