Rapper DMX Charged With Medical Identity Theft

Earl Simmons a.k.a. DMX -- a rap artist who seems to run afoul of the law frequently -- was arrested in a Phoenix mall on Saturday for identity theft.

Apparently, DMX used the name Troy Jones when seeking medical care for pneumonia, according to KNXV-TV in Phoenix. He also used a social security number that didn't belong to him. Allegedly, DMX did this to get out of paying a $7500 bill.

Earlier this month, DMX was arrested at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix for outstanding warrants. He was flying into Phoenix after being arrested for drugs in Florida. Maybe the reason, he doesn't have the money to pay his medical bills is because of all the drugs he buys (speculation)?

Prior to this arrest, DMX was recently arrested for speeding over 100 miles per hour on a suspended licence, drugs and animal cruelty. According to a Associated Press article, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the investigation into DMX committing identity theft started following the investigation into animal neglect at the rapper's home in Phoenix. During the search warrant of DMX's digs -- drugs, guns and 12 malnourished Pit Bulls were found. The remains of three other dogs were found on the property, also.

The type of identity theft DMX allegedly committed is known as medical identity theft. Medical identity theft is a growing phenomenon that causes great harm to it's victims, according to the World Privacy Forum, who performed the first in-depth study of the problem.

Despite the risk it carries, it's probably one of the least studied forms of identity theft. When someone becomes a victim of medical identity theft they not only face having to fix all their financial records, they also face having a lot of erroneous information placed in their medical records.

Medical identity theft victims might receive the wrong treatment, have their insurance used up, and could even be classified as a bad risk when seeking life and medical coverage. They could also fail a medical exam for employment when diseases show up in their medical records that they never had.

While most identity theft victims can correct errors in their credit reports and place alerts or freezes to prevent further fraudulent activity, the victim of medical identity theft doesn't have the same legal rights to clear their files of bad information. In some instances, they aren't even allowed to see what is in their files. Furthermore, medical identity theft victims don't have the right to stop insurers, health care providers and medical clearinghouses from sending this information back and forth to each other.

As medical records become electronic, this poses even greater risks because the information is being transmitted to a variety of databases. Sadly enough, one of the reasons many of these databases are being created is to prevent fraud.

It is also not unheard of for dishonest people in the medical industry to steal identities to submit fraudulent claims to insurance companies and even the government. Authorities within the law enforcement community estimate we are losing $60 billion a year due to Medicare fraud, according to an article in the Washington Post.

If you are interested in learning more about this, or have been a victim of Medical Identity Theft, I recommend reading the Medical Identity Theft Information Page on the World Privacy Forum.

The World Privacy Forum plans to issue a second study on this problem later on this year.


Booking photo of Earl Simmons a.k.a. DMX at the Maricopa County Jail shortly after his arrest.

Naughty UCLA employees peek at Britney's medical information

The LA Times is reporting that UCLA Medical Center employees were caught "peeking at" Britney Spears' medical records when she was recently hospitalized in their psychiatric unit.

I wonder if a total lack of privacy might be one of the underlying reasons Britney was admitted to this particular unit?

Charles Ornstein reports:

UCLA Medical Center is taking steps to fire at least 13 employees and has suspended at least six others for snooping in the confidential medical records of pop star Britney Spears during her recent hospitalization in its psychiatric unit, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.

In addition, six physicians face discipline for peeking at her computerized records, the person said.

The article states that this was the second time Britney's records were compromised at the UCLA Medical Center.

UCLA used stronger verbiage when reporting that their computer records were compromised in December of 2006.

As reported at the time by UCLA's Office of Public Relations:

UCLA is alerting approximately 800,000 people that their names and certain personal information are contained in a restricted database that was illegally and fraudulently accessed by a sophisticated computer hacker.

It should be noted that "illegally and fraudulently accessed" and "computer hacker" are stronger terms than "peeking" and "snooping." Maybe this is because the hacker is an outside entity and we can speculate they had a financial motivation when accessing information they weren't supposed to?

As long as we are speculating -- let me bring up another point -- which is there are a lot of people obviously making a lot of money from the Britney Spears saga. Her personal medical details might be worth a lot of money to the people, I'm referring to.

Recently, it was reported that People Magazine paid $4 million for the first pictures of Brad Pitt and Angelia Jolie's baby. Maybe a little privacy was one of the reasons they went to a remote place in Africa to have the baby?

Now I'd better get back to the larger problem, we face from too much information being stored in too many (not very secure) databases.

The problem is that with so many databases out there -- coupled with all the publicly disclosed data breaches -- tracking any one case of a person's information being compromised is nearly impossible.

Just ask anyone, who has actually investigated a case of identity theft. Most of the time, the best that can be done is to speculate where the information was actually compromised.

At this point in the game, a lot of people have been compromised in more than one location.

I would also speculate that there are even a greater number of data breaches out there that no one knows about. My guess is that the people, who steal information, would prefer to remain anonymous. Transparency has never been in the best interest of information thieves.

This brings up another problem that ties into this, or what is known as medical identity theft. While medical identity theft hardly ties into Britney Spears getting her information "peeked at," it has become a huge problem. The tie would be the ease in which naughty employees, with no business looking at it, were able to do so.

In the end, UCLA is a highly respected institution. They do seem to care that this happened and are taking the standard measures to prevent it from happening again. The problem here is that time and time again, it appears that some of these measures don't work very well.

The bottom line is that if things like this can happen at a respected institution of higher learning's medical center, it's probably happening at more places that we realize!

Speaking of this happening at more places than we realize, it was recently reported (3-12-08) that Harvard is one of the latest institutions to be victimized by a data breach.

As long as we rationalize things away by using terms like "peeking," I doubt the problem is going to get fixed in the near future. UCLA is probably only following standard data compromise protocol. Read the press releases after any compromise of data and there is a lot of rationalization and speculation.

This probably means we need to do a little less rationalizing and going beyond mere speculation when addressing what has become a serious issue. This will entail taking a hard look at the core reasons this keeps happening, one of which is, an ever increasing lack of privacy in the world today.

If you would like to see why UCLA isn't the only one who has had a problem with this issue, Attrition.org and PogoWasRight do a great (transparent) job of reporting the known spectrum of the problem.

If you want to read more about medical identity theft, the World Privacy Forum is an excellent resource.

Medicare Fraud arrests might expose ties to medical identity theft and organized crime

Ever wonder why our social services are going bankrupt? Here is a story, from a FBI press release, showing how $101 million was paid out in fraudulent health care claims.

Reading the release also made me wonder, where all the names to claim services, came from?

From the FBI release:

On May 22, 2007, a Miami federal grand jury returned a 46-count indictment against eight defendants in United States v. Mabel Diaz, et al., No. 07-20398-Cr-Ungaro. The indictment charges Mabel and Banner Diaz, wife and husband, with operating All-Med Billing Corp. (All-Med), a Miami medical billing company, and executing a scheme to submit tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims to Medicare from 1998 to 2004 for reimbursement for durable medical equipment (DME) and related services. The indictment alleges that All-Med submitted approximately $80 million in false claims on behalf of 29 DME companies. The claims were allegedly fraudulent in that the equipment had not been ordered by a physician and/or had never been delivered to a Medicare patient. As a result of the submission of the fraudulent claims, Medicare paid the DME companies approximately $56 million. The indictment also seeks forfeiture of the fraud proceeds and here substitute assets, including real estate of the Diazes. The Diazes were additionally charged with conspiracy to launder the proceeds of the alleged All-Med billing fraud scheme. Also charged in the All-Med billing fraud scheme was All-Med employee Suleidy Cano.

If you read down further on the release, the names of all the people being charged are Hispanic.

While I suppose, not all criminals with Hispanic names, cater to illegal aliens, a large number of them seem to. Despite this, there seems to be no information, whether or not; this activity had any ties to illegal immigrant activity, or if people’s identities were stolen to facilitate these crimes.

There is also very little information as to exactly how these crimes were committed. It would make sense that they would have to use names and other personal information to claim the “services,” paid for with taxpayer money.

Digging a little deeper, I found another press release dated the day before from the FBI describing a similar health care fraud scheme – where the employees involved were described as illegal aliens.

This case occurred on the other side of the country (Southern California). Please note that all the names listed on this press release were of Hispanic origin, also.

In the Los Angeles case, the taxpayers were only ripped off for a little more than $9 million. Small potatoes compared the amount in the Miami case. Of course, I wonder how much more of this is going on, where no one has been caught?

Some of these illegal aliens were posing as nurses, which could be pretty scary, if they were dispensing any real medical services. Even scarier, is the very real harm bogus information in a medical record can cause. If you think about it, bogus information in a medical history could be life-threatening.

The World Privacy Forum has studied this subject (in detail) and stated in a 56 page report:

This report discusses the issue of medical identity theft and outlines how it can cause great harm to its victims. The report finds that one of the significant harms a victim may experience is a false entry made to his or her medical history due to the activities of an imposter. Erroneous information in health files can lead and has led to a number of negative consequences for victims. Victims do not have the same recourse and help for recovery from medical identity theft as do victims of financial identity theft. This report analyzes statistics in health care and identity theft, and estimates that approximately a quarter million to a half million individuals have been victims of this crime.

The report also states:

Medical identity theft is deeply entrenched in the health cares system. Identity theft may be done by criminals, doctors, nurses, hospital employees, and increasingly, by highly sophisticated crime rings.

If the FBI is issuing two press releases about this activity, one could deduct that they might have been investigating some of these “highly sophisticated crime rings.”

Not sure if the impending immigration bill is the reason some of the surrounding issues aren't being talked about, but a lot of criminal activity is tied to the trade in human flesh.

On a personal note, I want to see honest immigrants find a better life, and continue the American tradition of adding value to the most diverse society in the world. The problem is that a lot of organized criminal groups have profited in the illegal immigrant trade for years, and no one has come up with a way to weed out this hidden activity, very effectively (my opinion).

Of note, the honest and hard working illegal immigrants are often victimized in this process, which is largely controlled by organized crime.

With millions of identities compromised, it isn’t going to be easy. Assuming someone else's identity has become too easy, especially for those with criminal connections.

FBI press release on Florida arrests, here.

FBI press release on Southern California arrests, here.

World Privacy Forum report on medical identity theft, here.

QuackWatch has a good site, which covers this type of fraud in great detail, here.

In case you wanted to learn more, the U.S. District Court of Southern Florida is happy to sell you the information, here.

The Virginia WatchDog goes after government sites that post too much personal information. A lot of great information about this subject, and examples of effective action taken by the Watchdog herself, BJ Ostergren can be found, here.

BJ and I had about an hour long conversation recently, where she demonstrated how easy personal information can be data-mined from these sites. I found BJ to be a fascinating person, but more of that, later.

This site and their important work will be the subject of some future posts.

My previous rants about organized crime controlling the traffic in human flesh can be read, here.

Organized groups with Hispanic names aren't the only immigrant groups ripping off the taxpayers. Here is a recent post, I did about another immigrant group that seems to focus on stealing public funds:

Eurasian organized crime loots public coffers