SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Born in a U.S. territory where he has lived all his life, Jose Marrero Rivera didn’t know that his name and Social Security number were racking up thousands of dollars in unpaid debt in Chicago and Miami.

Marrero, a snack bar worker, is one of thousands of Puerto Ricans caught up in a lucrative document-fraud scheme to hide illegal immigrants in the United States. They’re American citizens with Hispanic surnames. And their records — kept loosely in schools or church rectories, where they are easy to steal — draw as much as $6,000 on the black market.

Marrero only realized that identity thieves were upending his life when police showed up at his San Juan airport food stand to arrest him for car theft.

“All the information, all of it, the driver’s license, the Social Security, my address, was mine,” he said of the warrant.

Marrero, 32, avoided arrest because he didn’t match the police photo of the suspect, but he is unable to get loans. His credit is ruined.

Documents stolen from Puerto Rico have shown up in fraud-ring busts in Delaware and Ohio and immigration raids on meatpacking plants from Texas to Florida.

No government or law enforcement official can put a dollar amount on the illegal trade.

“Birth certificates have become legal tender,” said Kenneth McClintock, Puerto Rico’s secretary of state.

The island government’s answer has been to void every Puerto Rican birth certificate and require about 5 million people, including 1.4 million on the U.S. mainland, to reapply for new ones with security features.

New birth certificates will be issued starting July 1, and all old birth certificates will be annulled by Sept. 30.