Fwd: Identities Stolen in Seconds

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Monty Solomon <monty () roscom com>
Date: October 24, 2004 3:51:42 AM EDT
To: undisclosed-recipient:;
Subject: Identities Stolen in Seconds

Identities Stolen in Seconds

By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN
October 24, 2004

PAUSING in the foyer of a comfortable suburban home two days before
Halloween in 2002, Kevin Barrows, a special agent with the F.B.I.,
could not bring himself to open the front door. He and a team of
agents had just spent several hours searching every room in the
house, in New Rochelle, N.Y., but they were leaving empty-handed.
Months of investigating had led Mr. Barrows to believe that someone
was orchestrating a huge fraud from the house, yet he had not found a
single scrap of evidence.

Still, something bothered him about the furniture in one of the
bedrooms. It seemed oddly oversized. So he headed back upstairs for a
second look, and his attention focused on an expansive canopy over
the bed. When he pushed at the draping, he found that it was weighed
down with files. They contained reams of confidential financial
information about hundreds of individuals whose identities had been
pilfered in an intricate scheme that illicitly netted more than $50
million.

Two years later, the New Rochelle home has emerged as a linchpin in
what federal law enforcement authorities describe as the biggest case
of identity theft ever uncovered in the United States. The scheme was
essentially masterminded by just two people: Linus Baptiste, who
lived in the house and had contacts with a sprawling ring of Nigerian
street criminals, and Philip A. Cummings, his former brother-in-law,
who worked as a help-desk clerk at a Long Island software company. At
least 30,000 people nationwide were victimized, according to  law
enforcement authorities and court documents.

...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/24/business/yourmoney/24theft.html


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