US agents crack huge fraud case

US authorities have broken what they called the biggest identity theft case in American history, charging three men with emptying the bank accounts of thousands of victims.

US Attorney James Comey said the losses were calculated so far at €2.73m but would eventually run to many more millions and affect people across the country.

He said credit information for 30,000 people was stolen and described the case as “every American’s worst financial nightmare”.

About three years, Philip Cummings a help-desk worker at Teledata Communications sold passwords and codes for downloading consumer credit reports to an unidentified person, Comey said.

Teledata, a software company, provides banks with computerised access to credit information databases.

Cummings was allegedly paid about €31.30 for each report, and the information was then passed to at least 20 other people, who set out to make money from the stolen information, prosecutors said.

“The potential windfall was probably far greater than the content of a bank vault, and they didn’t even need a getaway car. All they needed was a phone and a computer, or so they thought,” said FBI Assistant Director Kevin Donovan. More than 15,000 credit reports were stolen from Experian, a credit history bureau, using passwords belonging to Ford Motor Credit Corporation, officials said.

They said thousands of other credit reports were stolen from finance companies across the nation.

Victims reported losing money from their bank accounts, seeing their credit cards hit with unauthorised charges, and having their identities assumed by strangers.

Comey said one sobbing victim telephoned prosecutors to say someone had stolen her identity, opened a €35,590 line of credit and cashed a cheque for €34,420.

“The people that take the hit ultimately will be all of us, although in the short-term it will be the companies that paid on the credit cards, the banks that lent them money,” he said.

Comey said many victims may not yet know they were defrauded. He urged consumers to pay closer attention to their financial statements and credit histories and learn how to protect themselves through the Federal Trade Commission’s Website.

Comey said the investigation was still in its early stages, but prosecutors had “found the guys who opened the fire hydrant of fraud”. If convicted, Cummings faces up to 30 years in prison and millions in fines.

In addition to the 33-year-old, the FBI also charged Linus Baptiste and Hakeem Mohammed in the fraud. The Newsday newspaper identified Baptiste as a Nigerian national.

In a company statement, Teledata officials said they had co-operated with the probe over the past eight months and were pleased to learn it has apparently come to a successful conclusion.