The Minnesota Department of Vehicle Services had a sneaking suspicion that at least some of the state issued driver’s licenses they had been handing out the past few years were frauds. So they embarked on an effort to find and remove the fakes. They used federally issued facial recognition software and hands-on manual labor to search through all the photos–all 11 million photos-and discovered about 24,000 were possible fakes. Of those they have already identified 10,000 which they are certain are fakes.

These licenses were immediately canceled.

Minnesota is just the first of what is expected to be numerous states which will be culling their records for fraudulent licenses. With a fake driver’s license a criminal could obtain a mortgage, any sort of bank loan; or even a passport. A U.S. issued driver’s license is an easy way to obtain all sorts of fraudulent records. For someone looking to do something bad, a fraudulent Minnesota driver’s license is the first step.

Of these 24,000 driver’s licenses, about 10,000 have been canceled. Beyond that, not much else has been done. Not a single name has been given yet to the Department of Human Services to check for welfare or food stamp fraud, and no names have been given or the Secretary of State to check against the voter rolls.

And what about criminal prosecution? Well, that is a very good question.

“All I can say we’ve referred 5,500 cases to an agency who can take any action necessary,” Neville said.

But the state won’t say which law enforcement agency, and the FOX 9 Investigators could only find a handful of prosecutions.

Those include people like Edward Sistrunk, aka Antonio Andolini, convicted last month for mail fraud and identity theft. He had state ID cards and Minnesota driver’s licenses under at least nine different names.

Under one identity alone he got 10,381 in benefits from Hennepin County Human Services and another $1,190 in housing assistance from Anoka County. He used those real IDs to get credit cards, counterfeit checks, and even other IDs in South Dakota.

So with 23,000 potential fraudulent IDs, shouldn’t we know who’s job it is to hold accountable? Neville said that’s law enforcement’s job, but law enforcement doesn’t give anyone to call up.