The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on Tuesday (October 20) released a statement announcing that 50-year-old Mario Cesar Dos Santos, Jr. from Massachusetts has admitted to committing one count of telecommunication fraud and one count of forging a government seal. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, with sentencing expected on December 18.
The announcement was made by the Central District of Florida Federal Prosecutors Office, with assistance from the Immigration Bureau. Dos Santos is a foreign national from Brazil who arrived in the U.S. in 2016 and overstayed his visa. The U.S. government has initiated deportation proceedings against him.
According to court documents, Dos Santos was the president of the so-called Chaplain Emergency Management Agency, Inc. (CEMA). He falsely claimed that CEMA was a government organization recognized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He misused the seals of FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to disguise CEMA as a federal government agency. Dos Santos also falsely claimed that CEMA had received full accreditation from the International Association for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and the American Council on Education (ACE) to conduct chaplain training courses in Florida, other states, and internationally, for which fees were charged.
Dos Santos organized multiple CEMA chaplain training courses, falsely claiming that CEMA was in partnership with FEMA and that both CEMA and its courses had FEMA’s approval. While the courses themselves were free, Dos Santos charged students around $400 to $450 for chaplaincy certificates. After completing the course and paying the fees, Dos Santos provided students with identification cards, law enforcement badges, and graduation certificates bearing the seals of various U.S. departments and agencies.
Dos Santos also informed students that these IDs and badges authorized them to assist law enforcement in emergencies and to control situations until law enforcement arrived. He falsely claimed that as CEMA chaplains, they had some level of immigration law enforcement exemption, protecting them from deportation.
He also sold CEMA merchandise, including polo shirts, stickers, jackets, badges, and badge clips, all bearing the seals of DHS or FEMA. During a training session on September 27, 2025, attended by approximately 30 to 45 people, an informant conducted an undercover operation, purchasing related merchandise and gaining access to the CEMA group chat. By the start of the investigation in August 2025, the group chat had over 750 members, which Dos Santos utilized to promote upcoming courses by sending out electronic flyers.
On February 19, 2026, Dos Santos was arrested at Orlando International Airport, wearing a CEMA polo shirt with DHS logos on the sleeves and chest, while planning to attend a CEMA training scheduled for February 21. The case was investigated with assistance from the Office of the Inspector General of DHS, the FBI, FEMA, Immigration Bureau’s Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate, and the Federal Air Marshal Service.