Hacker scheme leads to FBI charges

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http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/111600/bus_4627243.html

By Simon Barker-Benfield
Times-Union business writer
Thursday, November 16, 2000

They look like an unlikely pair of would-be hackers.

She's white haired and wore a paisley top. He's younger and wore a
pressed white dress shirt and tan slacks.

But according to the FBI, they tried to hire a computer expert for
$3,500 to break into the Teamsters Union pension and benefits database
to steal information.

According to court documents, the duo wanted the names and addresses
of union members to build a list of prospects. The idea was to sell
$2,000 hearing aids to Teamsters union members through a hearing aid
business, Atlantic Balance and Hearing Center on Arlington Expressway,
that she owns and he manages.

Why the Teamsters?

The couple figured truck drivers go deaf sooner and need hearing aids,
according to court documents.

Shelia Jean Sweet, 52, and Thomas Arthur Rake, 40, both of 462
Arlington Place, were arrested yesterday and charged with the federal
crime of conspiring to attempt to access a protected computer without
authorization, with intent to defraud.

They were released on $25,000 bond each after a hearing before U.S.
Magistrate Howard T. Snyder.

According to a complaint filed by undercover FBI I special agent Byron
Thompson, another reason for choosing the union was that "the
Teamsters' insurance, Central States [Fund], pays 100 percent of the
cost of new hearings aids and because Teamsters experience hearing
loss after years of driving trucks."

The case is the first to surface in Jacksonville since the FBI and
other federal agencies in September established the Jacksonville
chapter of the FBI's "Infragard" program, said Thomas J. Kneir,
special agent in charge of the FBI's Jacksonville division.

The program is a volunteer effort to make it easier to share
information about computer crime between the FBI and private
businesses. However, Kneir did not disclose any investigative details
of the case.

According to court documents, the first stirrings of the case started
in September, when the Naval Criminal Investigative Service alerted
the FBI that a "Tom" and a "Jean" "had been making inquiries in order
to locate someone who would be able to use Internet hacking methods to
steal information from a particular Internet Web site."

Instead they got Thompson wearing a hidden microphone, whom they tried
to recruit.

According to Thompson, Rake and Sweet told him they had used the
Social Security numbers of their Teamsters customers to gain access to
the Web site of the union's health and pension fund, Central States
Southeast and Southwest Areas Health and Pension Fund, in Rosemont,
Ill., but then got cold feet.

Thompson said that to help him crack Central States' computer system,
Rake and Sweet provided him with printouts on the benefit fund's
letterhead. The documents contained information from previous
insurance claims managed by Rake and Sweet's company for hearing aids
sold to Teamsters members.

"These printouts contained personal information including name,
address, Social Security number, union number and other information
related to the patient's health insurance benefits," Thompson wrote.

They wanted him to obtain Florida names first, then Georgia names and
then names from at least eight other states. They also wanted to
renegotiate the price on a state-by-state basis, Thompson stated.

Calls to Sweet and Rake were not returned Wednesday.

Penalties for the offense Sweet and Rake have been accused of include
five years in jail and a fine of $250,000, Assistant U.S. Attorney
Kathleen O'Malley told the court.

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