For just a few thousand dollars, the complaint said, these test-takers had found a shortcut to a new career behind the wheel.
But their careers were cut short this week, when prosecutors in Brooklyn and Manhattan charged 19 people in connection with schemes that penetrated several local offices of the State Department of Motor Vehicles. Eleven people accused of organizing the cheating ring are facing federal fraud charges. Eight others who were applicants face state-level charges of making false statements.
Prosecutors said that more than 60 people cheated on the test and obtained commercial driver’s licenses, and officials said that more charges were expected.
Prosecutors said that none of the drivers who cheated on the tests went on to have an accident.
To obtain a commercial driver’s license from the D.M.V., applicants must pass a written or audio test covering subjects related to safely driving large vehicles. They must mark the answers to both the written and audio tests on paper. Applicants then take a road test.
In one cheating scheme for the written exam, Akmal Narzikulov, 28, an organizer of the ring, provided applicants with a coded pencil with a series of dots and dashes carved into its side, according to the court complaint. The dots and dashes reflected the answers to true or false portions of the exams.
In another scheme, the complaint said, test-takers would leave the exam room and give their blank tests to one of the members of the ring, often Joachim Pierre Louis. He would take the exams to a fast-food restaurant where an associate, Marie Daniel, would complete them, and then the exams would be returned to the applicants.
The ruse relied on bribed security guards, contract employees with the D.M.V., who turned a blind eye. Three of those charged in Federal District Court in Brooklyn were guards.
Two confidential informants approached the authorities and exposed the schemes. From April to September, undercover officers with the New York Police Department approached Mr. Narzikulov and Mr. Louis, paying them up to $4,000 for answers to the exams.
The scheme’s organizers face up to 20 years in prison; the drivers face up to 4 years.
The arrests were announced by the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Loretta E. Lynch; the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr.; and the state inspector general, Catherine Leahy Scott.
