More than a third of the people who obtained Rhode Island driver’s licenses through a fraud scheme are suspected or convicted drug dealers moving tens of thousands of dollars of cocaine and marijuana, and some of the 10 are illegal immigrants who had been previously deported.

While state police detectives say they don’t know whether the licenses were going to members of a drug ring, some of those arrested have been arrested delivering drugs in Florida, New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island — all hiding their identities with driver’s licenses allegedly issued by two clerks at the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles.

One man who admitted to trafficking in kilos of cocaine was convicted this summer in Orlando after he was caught with other traffickers trying to buy 2 kilograms of cocaine with bundles of cash stashed in his Mercedes Benz. He’d already been deported twice.

Another man was arrested this summer in Providence with 42 pounds of marijuana, packaged and ready to go at a West End apartment complex. He’d been deported two years ago and had been charged for drugs in New York.

Ten of the 28 people who allegedly got driver’s licenses through this scheme either have criminal records or have been deported, or both.

The tough part of finding the others is figuring out who they really are, said state police Capt. Stephen Lynch.

So far, the state police have charged the two Registry clerks — Dolores Rodriguez LaFlamme, 40, and Soraya Santiago, 42 — and one of the alleged “middlemen,” plus 10 people whom the police say bought driver’s licenses through the scam.

But 19 people are still at large. While the state police have the names and addresses listed on the licenses, they believe some or possibly most identities are false. The only part that’s real is the actual license photo — and their fingerprints.

State police and federal agents in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and Florida are searching for the remaining suspects. They are also working on establishing links between the DMV clerks, the suspected middlemen, and the license-holders who seem to come from places up and down the East Coast.

“We still don’t know who the mastermind is,” Lynch said. As for those in custody or wanted in other states, he said, what is clear is that “at some point they were up here.”

However, some patterns have emerged in arrest records, court documents and the affidavits, which have been filed by state police Detective Matthew C. Moynihan, who began the investigation.

At least five of the suspects in custody live or gave addresses within blocks of one of the suspected middlemen, 55-year-old Luis Rivera, in South Providence. Three of the suspects, including Santiago, either live or gave addresses near each other at the Pawtucket-Central Falls line.

Dates the suspects obtained their license show a time pattern: two of the suspects received their licenses on the same day; two others received them one day apart.

Those whose true identities are known are people convicted of or charged with dealing large quantities of drugs. These are people who were paying middlemen $2,500 to $3,000 for a valid driver’s license that would hide their real identity.

Those arrested include:

•Alexander Hernandez, 29, also known as Noel Aguasvivas and Emanuel Diaz, who is in federal custody in Florida. In a plea agreement this summer, Hernandez admitted that he was one of the cocaine traffickers attempting to buy 2 kilos of cocaine from someone they believed was a dealer in Florida. Hernandez and his partner showed off that they had the money when they used a cell phone to remotely open a secret trap door inside Hernandez’s Mercedes Benz, in which they said was $60,000 cash. Hernandez was arrested with his Rhode Island license that had been issued Oct. 31. He’d been deported twice before.

•Jose Nieves, 43, also known as Jose Gonzalez and Hector Aponte. Nieves has two outstanding Massachusetts warrants for cocaine distribution. According to the district attorney’s office in Boston, Nieves and a codefendant were found with 7 kilograms of cocaine, worth between $126,000 and $210,000. He got a license with a new identity on Nov. 29.

•Fleridilia Alvarez, 24, of 103 Peace St., Providence. She’d gotten a new license on May 23. Seven days later, she was arrested by Providence police after a tip led them to 1.5 kilograms of cocaine, and 12 ounces of marijuana in her apartment. She also had cocaine and marijuana inside her daughter’s pink Barbie lunchbox, which she tossed out the window of her car when she noticed the police were tailing her, the police said. Just a month before, she had pleaded no contest to cocaine dealing.

•Juan Paula, 41, with an alias of Rafael Feliciano, was arrested by the state police High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force after they seized 42 pounds of packaged marijuana from his apartment in the West End of Providence. He’d been deported two years ago and charged by New York City police for drugs. He got a license with a different identity on Nov. 22.

•Fernando Iglesisas Vargas, 30, also known as Osvaldo A. Hernandez. He was arrested in New York in August for possession of more than 8 ounces of cocaine with intent to distribute. He’d been arrested in New York City for this charge before, under a different name. He was issued a Rhode Island license on Sept. 6, 2006.

•Charlie Rosario, 23, alias Charlie Adrian, was arrested by the state police for 10.5 ounces of cocaine. He got his license under a new identity on Aug. 17, 2006.

Of the 19 people still at large, two of them are known to be drug criminals, and a third had been deported and jumped bail in New York City. But again, state police aren’t sure that the names of the suspects they are seeking are the true identities.

“We knew going into this that [finding them] was going to be hard,” Lynch said.

kziner@projo.com