In San Diego, a high-tech, undercover, multijurisdictional task force called the Computer and Technology Crime High-Tech Response Team, or CATCH, targets the nationwide identity theft epidemic.
“This is the fastest-growing crime in the United States today, and it is worldwide,” says Keith Burt, the project director of CATCH and a deputy district attorney in San Diego. “We had one individual who had 10 million profiles in his computer alone.”
Ten million profiles equals 10 million identities. In recent months, at least 5 million more identities have been lost or stolen from some very big names, including:
* The University of California, Berkeley
* Bank of America
* ChoicePoint
* The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles
* DSW Shoe Warehouse
* Boston College
* Ameritrade
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Five people were arrested Wednesday on various charges related to an alleged identity-theft ring, thanks to a quick-thinking off-duty Larimer County Sheriff’s Office investigator.
Steve Holloway was shopping while off work at the Super Wal-Mart in Fort Collins and recognized a woman who was on probation for forgery and criminal impersonation. Holloway also noted that Mary Elizabeth Lozano, 32, was writing a check that belonged to another person, police said.
Holloway relayed the information to deputies who stopped the vehicle that Lozano left the store in.
Lozano was arrested on charges of forgery, criminal impersonation, and two counts of misdemeanor theft.
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A former Washtenaw County assistant prosecutor was placed on probation and ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution this week after he pleaded no contest in a criminal identity theft case.
Charles Carpenter, 44, was sentenced Tuesday on a misdemeanor charge of obtaining money under false pretenses, $199 to $1,000.
Carpenter was originally charged by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office with five felonies, including three counts of obtaining money under false pretenses, between $999 and $20,000; defrauding or obtaining funds from a vulnerable adult when in a relationship of trust; and obtaining personal identifying information, known as identity theft.
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A 73-year-old Old Bridge man who was arrested earlier this month on drunken driving charges after a Route 18 car accident is accused of giving police a false identity, one taken from a deceased man.
Police determined that Angelo Candelaria is the true identity of the man who was involved in a hit-and-run accident April 3, but that he gave police the name Carmine Cicchino at the time and showed a valid New Jersey driver’s license for that identity. Police would later learn that Cicchino is the deceased husband of an acquaintance of Candelaria’s, and that he used Cicchino’s personal information to procure the license more than two years earlier.
Candelaria, whose own license had been suspended, had allegedly driven his Ford Escort through a red light while turning onto Route 18 from Racetrack Road westbound when he struck a Honda Accord operated by a 26-year-old Somerset man. Police said Candelaria fled the scene on Route 18, but was followed to his home by a witness, and was arrested on charges of driving while intoxicated, refusal to submit to a breath test analysis, leaving the scene of an accident, and failure to report an accident.
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Sublette residents were educated on the intricacies of identity theft and scams Wednesday night.
Rudy Lewis from State Treasurer Judy Barr Topinka’s office gave a seminar at the Ellice Dinges Center.
“Don’t carry anything you don’t want found,” Lewis told the crowd. “You are the first line of defense against identity theft.”
One of the ways identity thieves get their information is by stealing wallets and purses. He suggested keeping only items that are needed and never carrying a Social Security Card in a wallet or purse.
Thieves also can steal outgoing and incoming mail. Most of the outgoing mail these days is bills and thieves can get information or they can eliminate the ink and make the check out to themselves.
“They’ll find a way to cash that check,” Lewis said.
People should shred their documents both vertically and horizontally before putting them into dumpsters, especially businesses, according to Lewis. Identity thieves will go “dumpster diving” to get personal information and some have gone so far as to put together documents that have been shredded only one way.
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Seven people have been identified as victims of identity theft after law enforcement officers dismantled a counterfeiting operation Tuesday at the Enchanted Grove Mobile Home Park in Lake Wales.
Agents with the Secret Service and detectives with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office and the Lake Wales Police Department recovered more than $5,000 dollars in counterfeit currency, driver licenses and identification cards while serving a search warrant at 5137 North Scenic Highway, Lot 114.
During the seizure, Wayne A. Johnson, 35, and Johanne Michelle Quilty, 38, were arrested. They are being held in the Polk County Jail on $200,000 bail.
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To avoid identity theft or falling victim to a scam, experts say, don’t give out personal information to the wrong people.
If you are not sure who the wrong people are, then ask.
“If you don’t understand what it is all about, then run it by someone else,” said Cathleen Newman, deputy division manager of the Dover Township Senior Center.
Newman said she helps people at the center learn about scams that are targeting the senior population at an alarming rate.
The center held an informational session Wednesday, attended by about 60 residents who came to listen to Senior Investigator Cindy Boyd of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. Boyd told the audience about a host of new scams targeting seniors.
“They are all interested in the senior scams because they are getting the letters in the mail that they will get a check,” Newman said. “The seniors are taken by it.”
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ID theft is a misnomer which is hurting the fight against fraud, according to encryption guru Bruce Schneier. Instead of talking about ID theft it’s better to talk about fraud due to impersonation, he claimed.
The crime exists because identifying information about a person is easy to steal and valuable once it is stolen. Schneier said that rather than focusing on making identity harder to steal it makes more sense to make information harder to use for criminal purposes. “The industry is going the wrong way in the US by worrying about keeping identity details secret. The focus should be on fraud. European countries, such as Holland [The Netherlands], are doing better than the US,” he said.
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A Bridgeport woman has been charged with impersonating a dental hygienist for at least two local dentists.
Maria Calo, 27, was arrested on charges of identity theft, larceny and two counts each of impersonating a licensed dental hygienist and performing the unlicensed practice of dental hygiene.
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Sen. Maria Cantwell has called for a study linking identity theft with methamphetamine abuse.
If the study leads to more public awareness and stiffer penalties for both crimes, then Cantwell’s study will have served a useful purpose.
Identity theft is among the fastest-growing crimes in the nation, according to Cantwell, Washington’s junior senator. She expects the study to show how identity theft is used to support meth addiction.
Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk said a property-crimes task force found that 93 percent of about 300 felony charges it brought were linked to meth.
There is a broad consensus that meth users support their habit by stealing other people’s credit cards and checking-account numbers. They dig through garbage containers or ransack people’s mailboxes in their quest for personal identification they can use to steal a person’s identity.
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