DOJ Revokes Citizenship of Gun Smuggler, Health‑Care Fraudster and Sues Third for Marriage Fraud

The Justice Department announced Thursday it has secured federal court orders denaturalizing Ukrainian‑born Vladimir Volgaev and Cuban‑born Mirelys Cabrera Diaz, and has filed a civil suit to revoke the citizenship of Lebanese‑born Alec Nasreddine Kassir for alleged marriage fraud. DOJ says Volgaev concealed his role in a conspiracy to smuggle more than 1,000 firearms components out of the United States and was convicted in 2020 of smuggling goods from the U.S. and theft of government money or property, after naturalizing in 2016. Cabrera Diaz, a Hialeah, Florida resident, admitted in a 2019 guilty plea that between 2011 and 2014 she conspired to commit health‑care fraud by paying kickbacks to patient recruiters for bogus prescriptions, leading to a 29‑month prison sentence and more than $6 million in restitution and, according to DOJ, making her ineligible for the citizenship she later obtained. In Kassir’s case, the department alleges he falsely claimed to be living with a U.S. citizen spouse in the three years before his 2010 naturalization; he previously pleaded guilty in 2018 to passport fraud. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate cast the actions as part of an ongoing push to strip citizenship from people who lied or hid disqualifying conduct during the naturalization process, a strategy that civil‑liberties groups have warned can create a two‑tier system for naturalized versus native‑born Americans.