Posted on: Friday, February 4, 2005
Watch out: Identity-theft ring sells fake cards, forges checks
| • | Overall crime rate for Hawai'i continues to fall |
By Peter Boylan
Advertiser Staff Writer
Honolulu police are after a ring of identity thieves suspected of forging checks and creating credit lines to bankroll their drug use.
Order a copy of your credit report, which contains information on where you work and live, the credit accounts that have been opened in your name, how you pay your bills and whether you've been sued, arrested or have filed for bankruptcy. Make sure it's accurate and includes only those activities you've authorized. To get a free credit report, consumers can log on to www.AnnualCreditReport.com, created jointly by the credit reporting companies. They also can call toll-free (877) 322-8228, or mail a form to Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. Consumers are allowed one free report per year from each agency. Place passwords on your credit card, bank and phone accounts. Avoid using easily available information such as your mother's maiden name, your birth date, the last four digits of your Social Security number or telephone number, or a series of consecutive numbers. When opening new accounts, you may find that many businesses still have a line on their applications for your mother's maiden name. Use a password instead. Secure personal information in your home, especially if you have roommates, employ outside help or are having service work done in your home. Source: Federal Trade Commission Police are urging the public to safeguard personal information and to keep close track of receipts, bank statements and other documents tied to finances. The group is stealing mail and rummaging through trash to find discarded documents that contain personal information such as bank account numbers and Social Security numbers.
So far, police have documented $27,000 in stolen funds, but detectives have yet to examine several sets of financial records from the victims' banks and the total could go higher. Police said the thieves are using the money to buy crystal methamphetamine and other drugs.
The ring set up mobile "fraud factories" at several O'ahu residences, police say, and used computers, color printers, scanners, laptops, laminaters and digital cameras to manufacture fake IDs. They sold most of the cards and used the rest to secure fraudulent credit cards taken out in other people's names or to cash counterfeit checks.
Personal information, such as Social Security and bank account numbers, is stolen from mail, store receipts, Internet purchases, thefts, car break-ins and burglaries. Most of the material needed to make fake IDs and counterfeit checks — from the plastic cards to the "Hawaii" holograms — can be bought at office supply stores or over the Internet, police said.
Police declined to say where the group is based or in what part of the island these factories are located.
Polices said they are finding more and more identity theft is tied to drug use.
"It is becoming a part of the drug culture," said Detective Mike Kawamoto, a 24-year HPD veteran who has experience working on identity theft cases.
Late last year, state and federal law enforcement officers took down four of the largest and most elaborate fake-ID factories ever found on O'ahu. The four factories were rooted out by patrol officers and detectives with the Honolulu Police Department's financial crimes unit searching hotel rooms and other locations in Waikiki and downtown during October and November 2004. On the basis of the evidence recovered from the sites, police said, hundreds of people were victims.
That case is not related to the thieves currently operating on O'ahu, police said yesterday.
There were 649 reported cases of identity theft in Hawai'i in 2003 out of 214,905 reported nationally. Hawai'i ranked 25th of 50 states in reported identity thefts per capita.
Industry observers believe U.S. consumers lose hundreds of millions of dollars every year to identity theft. For businesses and financial institutions, identity theft took a toll of $48 billion in 2002.
Reach Peter Boylan at 535-8110 or pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.
Six Hawai'i residents are being investigated in connection with the manufacture and sale of fake driver's licenses and state identification cards. No names have been released in the case, which is being worked by financial fraud detectives.
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