NEWBURGH – Fake IDs sold online on China-based websites have become so realistic that they are posing a danger to America’s youth, US Senator Charles Schumer said Thursday.

Those fake driver’s licenses promote underage drinking and drunk driving among teens including those in the Hudson Valley, he said while making a stop in Newburgh.

“I am urging the Department of Homeland Security to tell our money wire houses – the Western Unions, the PayPal, all of these wire houses that send money, not to send them to these websites,” he said. “They are in China and that’s the best way we can strangle them financially and then they can’t do anything because these websites, their only goal is to send out fake IDs.”

Those fake IDs come with holograms, watermarks and magnetic strips, making them almost identical to drivers’ licenses issued by the state DMV, the senator said.