'Fortunately, Our Efforts to Identify Them are Keeping Pace With Their Effort to Mutilate Themselves'

Another stupid criminal is now a candidate for the Darwin Award.

A 36-year-old Boston man wanted on 13 warrants - one accusing him of drug trafficking - allegedly tried to keep police from finding him by mutilating his fingers to conceal his prints.

Francis Viliar told State Police over the weekend that he paid someone $400 to cut his fingers vertically, from the fingertip to the knuckle joint, so his prints would be unreadable, said David Procopio, a police spokesman.

Viliar was arrested Friday night after State Police pulled him over for speeding in Brockton. Procopio said he gave troopers a driver’s license that had the name Luis Gomez but was signed by what appeared to be a different name.

When police asked Viliar for his date of birth, he gave them a different year from the one on his license. After failing five more times to provide the date of birth on the card, he was arrested on charges of giving police a false name and using fraudulent documents. A weapons charge was added after the troopers found a large folding knife hidden in the car, police said.

At the Brockton police station, officers saw that the pads of his fingers were covered in scar tissue, Procopio said. They took fingerprints anyway and sent them to the FBI. Federal officials were able to put together some of the ridges taken from the prints and figure out Viliar’s identity, Procopio said.

They gave the guy five cracks at getting the birth date correct? One would think once was enough to warrant arrest. The again, this is Massachusetts. For all we know the guy is an illegal, but the Globe would never even inquire.

Despite the fact he has 13 outstanding warrants, he somehow managed low bail at only $25,000.

On the upside, this mutant and others like him are quite bright enough to stay ahead of the FBI.

Procopio said other wanted criminals have tried to conceal fingerprints. In some cases, they have used acid to burn off ridges. FBI and State Police have managed to identify most suspects using fingerprint analysis, he said.

“Fortunately, our efforts to identify them are keeping pace with their effort to mutilate themselves,’’ he said.