Foreign National Steals Identity
The U.S. Department of Justice announced that a Columbian citizen pled guilty to a 16-count indictment involving a complex computer fraud scheme that victimized over 600 U.S. citizens. According to the indictment, the 40 year old Foreign National acted alone and in concert with a co-conspirator when they engaged in a complex series of computer intrusions, aggravated identity thefts and credit card frauds designed to steal money from payroll, bank and other accounts of their identity theft victims.
Most of the identity theft activity was initiated by the Foreign National from computers located in Columbia and targeted individuals living in the U.S., including Department of Defense Personnel. The identity thief used most of the money to buy expensive electronics and luxury travel and accommodations in various countries, including Hong Kong, Turks and Caicos, France, Jamaica, Italy, Chile and the United States. R. Alexander Acosta, U.S.
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Attorney for the SDFL, stated, “Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. The Internet is an outstanding tool, but it is vulnerable. Criminals like xxxxxx use the Internet to steal our banking and personal data, and then our money. When you travel, please think twice before entering personal or financial data on a public computer.”
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The Columbian citizen engaged in a conspiracy that started with him illegally installing keystroke logging software on computers located in hotel business centers and internet lounges around the world. This software would collect the personal information of the people using the computers, including passwords and other personal identifying information the identity theft victims used to gain access to their bank, payroll, brokerage and other accounts online.
The identity thief used the information he intercepted from victims, who were mostly guests at hotels throughout the country, to steal or divert money from their accounts into other accounts he had created in the names of other people he had victimized already. Next, through a series of complex electronic transactions designed to cover his tracks, he would transfer the stolen money to credit, cash or debit cards and have the cards mailed to himself and others at Pak Mail and other commercial mailing addresses he set up across America.
U.S. Federal Agents arrested the identity thief when his plane landed in the U.S. in August 2007. When he was arrested, the criminal was flying on an airline ticket bought with stolen money, and he had a laptop with him that was purchased with stolen money. The laptop held names, passwords, and other personal and financial information of more than 600 people. The case was prosecuted jointly by Senior Counsel William Yurek of the Computer Crime and Intellectual Section of the Criminal Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Domingues Boscovich of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, who serves as the coordinator for the office’s Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property Unit (CHIP). The criminal investigation was conducted by agents of the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the United States Postal Inspection Service.
