According to the US Justice Department and the FBI, a ring of identity thieves has operated over a period of three years and has stolen credit reports from all major credit reporting agencies. The stolen information was allegedly used to take over victims' identities, request credit cards, transfer funds from bank accounts and make fraudulent purchases.
The main suspect, 33-year old Philip Cummings, was an employee of Teledata Communications (TCI), a credit check agency for banks and credit card companies. He allegedly used client passwords to download tens of thousands of credit reports.
He is also accused of conspiring with another man, Linus Baptiste of New Rochelle, New York, to sell the stolen reports to a ring of 20 people in the Bronx and Brooklyn for $60 each. A third individual, Hakeem Mohammed, faces similar charges.
The scam was revealed in February 2002, when Ford Motor Credit discovered it was being billed for thousands of credit reports it never ordered. The US authorities said that at least $2.7 million was stolen, but they expect this figure to increase by millions of dollars as the investigation continues.