Identity Theft Protection Lock

On Thursday June 12, 2008 a 22 year old fugitive from Romania who was charged last year for aggravated identity theft and other charges made his first appearance in a federal court after being extradited to the United States from Spain. The Spanish government granted the extradition of the Romanian to the U.S. on approximately May 14, 2008, almost seven months after the U.S. State Department filed a request with Spain.

The man was provisionally arrested Sept. 25, 2007, in Spain on behalf of the U.S. He was indicted June 19, 2007, on three counts of possession of 15 or more “unauthorized access devices” (i.e. credit card numbers) and three counts of aggravated identity theft by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota. The indictment outlines an Internet “phishing” scheme perpetrated by the man to collect personal information of people and sell it. The indictment alleges that from June 2000 to February 2007, the man lived in New York and Michigan, and maintained two e-mail accounts.

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The accused mans account allegedly held personal information and financial information, such as names, addresses, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, Social Security account numbers and personal identification numbers of thousands of people, including some Minnesota residents. The indictment alleges that from May 2004 to February 2007 the accused man had in his e-mail accounts numerous phishing Web sites that were pre-built and ready to unleash, and that contained computer code that was designed to collect credit card numbers and personal identification information under the auspices of legitimate financial institutions.

We wrote an extensive article on phishing about a month ago and you can easily locate it on this blog, but phishing refers to a scheme where fraudulent e-mails and/or fraudulent Web sites are created to appear as if they are authorized by legitimate entities, such as Banks. People who receive phishing e-mails and/or Web sites are fooled into providing their personal identification and financial information because they believe that a legitimate organization has requested the information. Phishing is a big part of identity theft. The indictment alleges that on several occasions, including Feb. 2004, Nov. 2004, and January 2005, the accused offered by e-mail to sell stolen personal identification information.

In October 2004, he allegedly e-mailed files containing phishing Web sites and e-mails, including logos and graphics of legitimate companies, which also contained computer source code that could be used to carry out phishing schemes. The accused, in august 2005, allegedly offered to sell a phishing tool kit that contained step by step instructions for setting up a phishing operation, and in December 2004 he allegedly offered to sell hardware devices capable of copying the magnetic information from the backs of credit cards. This magnetic information is the personal identification and financial information of the credit card holder. The indictment alleges that the accused possessed a machine for imprinting graphics on blank white cards, foil ribbons for making the holographic that appear on identification cards and credit cards, as well as blank plastic cards and partially created phony driver’s license and credit cards.

According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit, the agency first started investigating the accused in January 2005. The FBI executed a number of search warrants directed to Internet Service Providers hosting e-mail accounts, and agents discovered two accounts that belonged to the accused. The affidavit cites an e-mail dated Jan. 16, 2005, sent from one of the 22 year olds e-mail accounts that contained a file, which had credit card information for about 5,889 victims, 96 of which were from Minnesota, including 34 from Hennepin County. If convicted, the man faces a potential maximum penalty of ten years on each of the credit card number possession counts and a mandatory statutory minimum penalty of two years on the identity theft counts. All sentences are determined by a federal district court judge.

This case is the result of an investigation by the FBI, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole A. Engisch. An indictment is a determination by a grand jury that there is probable cause to believe that offenses have been committed by the defendant. The defendant, of course, is presumed innocent until he or she pleads guilty or is proven guilty at trial.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 11:44 pm and is filed under Data Breaches, Foreign National Steals Identity, Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.