FBI Agents Stationed Abroad to Combat ID Theft

Via arstechnica.com -

When a criminal can pick up a fake identity, complete with credit card information, for under twenty bucks, it's clear that the identity theft market has become an efficient place to do business. A recent survey claimed that nearly 9 million adults in the US were victims of identity theft in 2006, and the problem caused losses of $50 billion. In testimony to Congress this week, Associate Deputy Attorney General Ronald Tenpas painted a grim picture of the organized criminal networks behind the scams.

Sometimes these networks are based in other countries, often Russia or Romania.

Unfortunately for the criminals, actually using stolen credit cards in Russia presents a problem, as this can easily trigger anti-fraud safeguards. The solution they hit upon sounds much like a 419 scam, except that the American accomplice actually does get some money.

One American in Virginia, who goes by the Internet nick "John Dillinger," agreed to cooperate with "vendors" from Eastern Europe. These groups "acquired" credit card numbers, then sent them by e-mail and instant message to Dillinger, who then encoded them onto credit cards. He then took these credit cards to ATMs and made cash withdrawals; a percentage of the money was then sent back to the "vendor" and Dillinger kept the rest. Dillinger was eventually busted by the feds, though, and was sentenced in February 2007 to 94 months in jail.

The Eastern European connection has become a large-enough problem that the FBI has begun working with the Romanian National Police on identity theft. Tenpas told Congress that six agents traveled to Bucharest last year to take part in "Cardkeeper," a joint initiative that ended with 13 arrests in the US and several searches in Romania. The project was successful enough that agents are now spending much more time overseas. "FBI agents are [now] deployed to Romania to work full-time, hand-in-hand with the RNP on cases of mutual interest," he said.