Four men were arrested yesterday for their part in an audacious and sophisticated international identity theft scheme that scammed at least $2.5 million from dozens of banks.
They are accused of tapping into the home equity loan lines of credit of homeowners with plenty of credit available. The homeowners’ personal information was obtained from co-conspirators overseas, from public records or, in some cases, from gullible bank employees.
Once the thieves had their victims’ information they convinced the banks to transfer money to other banks.
The men used remarkable powers of persuasion to circumvent identity validation, convincing bank employees to change the customer’s phone number on the accounts, and persuading phone company workers to reroute the homeowners’ calls.
Authorities say this case is almost identical to a case in Virginia that netted more than $50 million for the nine people charged with the crimes.
Mortgage fraud identity thieves have evolved to keep pace with the changing economic climate. During recent halcyon days of easy credit and sub-prime mortgages, criminals took advantage of low-doc and no-doc loan applications to steal from their victims.
The members of identity theft rings work together to design and conduct massive international scams; don’t try to go up against them alone. LifeLock’s identity theft protection strategies continue to evolve to keep pace with identity thieves’ changing tactics.
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Tags: home equity lines of credit, identity theft ring, international identity theft ring, LifeLock promo code Defense
I think the interesting part is how naive the workers at the barks were. I hope that the tellers at my bank know better than to give out personal information out over the phone. I sure hope that these guys are a lot more cunning than it sounds like. If they are at least not everyone can pull this off. I don’t know maybe my money would be better off in a coffee can on top of the fridge.
I have to say it was pretty smart of them to get the contact numbers changed so that the banks couldn’t contact the victims. That is what I would have done if I was a criminal, which I’m not.