Two weeks ago members of an international identity theft and forged credit card syndicate were able to boast of the $15 million they netted from for their efforts within the past year.

But now it’s the office of the Queens district attorney that’s doing the boasting after a huge bust last week in New York.

“Our investigation reveals that, in terms of just the sheer number of people indicted, this is one of the largest identity theft networks uncovered in recent history and is just possibly the tip of a much larger global credit card trafficking operation,” Queens district attorney Richard A. Brown said.

The identity theft ring members are accused of bilking 6,000 consumer and financial institutions out of $15 million, and using stolen information to make fraudulent purchases in places as far-flung as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Dubai.

But in the end, the numbers were on the side of law enforcement. They tapped more than a hundred phones and listened in on roughly a million phone conversations—250,000 of them that had to be translated from West African languages and dialects.

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At the end of the 30-day free period, your card will be automatically billed $9 monthly unless you cancel within that first 30-day period. You can cancel anytime without penalty by calling 1-800-LIFELOCK. This offer is for new LifeLock members only.

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Anyone who’s ever gotten a driver’s license knows how hellishly boring the state office for such services can be. Well, the semi-comatose Georgia residents waiting in line at the Cordele office of Georgia Department of Driver Services got a welcome break in the tedium when nine people were busted there for being part of an identity theft ring.

According to investigators, four of the suspects were brought to Georgia from Delaware. Once they arrived they were introduced to others who provided them with identification cards and counterfeit employment verification letters to establish them as Georgia residents.

The suspects also had authentic Texas birth certificates and Social Security cards in their possession when they were arrested.

The identity theft ring allegedly intended to acquire entire sets of identity documentation for undocumented aliens in southwest Georgia.

Officers from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, Georgia Department of Driver Services and the Crisp County Sheriff’s Office participated in the investigation that led to the arrests.

The nine people arrested included three from small towns in southwest Georgia near Cordele. Arrested were Melisa D. Howeger, 25, of Tifton, Ga.; Peggy Sue Duckworth, 60, and her daughter, Rita Charline Rodriguez, 31, both of Moultrie.

The other six were from Delaware. They are Froilan Garcia-Juarez, 38; Jenner Estuardo Garcia-Garcia, 25; Erica Ablizar Perez-Villegas, 27; Hugo Juarez-Niz, 22; Parfecto Delfino, 20; and Portino Perez, 39.

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At the end of the 30-day free period, your card will be automatically billed $9 monthly unless you cancel within that first 30-day period. You can cancel anytime without penalty by calling 1-800-LIFELOCK. This offer is for new LifeLock members only.

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If you’ve been thinking about how to mitigate your chances of becoming an identity theft victim, but don’t want to pay a lot of money for an identity theft program, LifeLock discounts are the answer.

Though it’s true you can place fraud alerts and obtain your credit reports without assistance or fees, it’s also true that you get what you pay for.

A fraud alert is available to anyone who has been a victim of identity theft, or has good reason to think they might become one, but the fraud alerts are good for only 90 days and if they remain necessary, must be renewed. Few people ever place the alerts in the first place, and still fewer are vigilant about their 90-day renewals.

When you become a LifeLock customer, they’ll immediately have a fraud alert placed for you (if you need it), and automatically renew them unless you tell them not to.

But fraud alerts are only a small part of effective identity theft service. That’s why LifeLock provides services that protect you from the most common identity theft threats—stolen mail, lost or stolen wallets, fraudulent address changes and Internet rings that buy and sell large parcels of stolen identities.

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A Denver grand jury indicted five defendants last week in an identity theft crime ring. Shadwick Weaver, the ringleader, is in custody and being held on $500,000 bond. Weaver has been indicted on 65 counts. Three of the others indicted by the grand jury are also in custody; a fifth defendant is at large.

During a joint investigation by the economic crimes units of the Aurora Police Department and the Denver District Attorney’s office, detectives discovered almost 300 fraudulent IDs, employee IDs, and counterfeit checks and credit cards.

They also discovered dozens of victims that include merchants and individuals who lost thousands of dollars. The crime ring targeted grocery stores, hotels and liquor stores and used what they called “temporary credit cards”—cards the thieves made that had no magnetic strips. When clerks asked about the unusual cards, Weaver and the others explained they had been issued temporary cards and would then manually enter stolen credit card numbers on the merchants’ credit card keypads.

Investigators have linked the defendants to methamphetamine trafficking, which they believe was funded by the identity thefts. Financial and personal information was obtained by breaking into cars and burglarizing homes and businesses.

Charges against the five include theft, identity theft, forgery and conspiracy to commit theft, conspiracy to commit identity theft, conspiracy to commit forgery and conspiracy to commit computer crime.

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