Virtual Kidnapping - A New Version of a Confidence Trick!

Not all the kidnappings in Mexico and the United States are real. The US Immigration and Customs division gets reports of virtual kidnappings, where the intent is to extort money, but the alleged victim is safe and sound.

The kidnappers appear to be able to find out who is traveling to Mexico and/or is coming into the US illegally. They then call a family member or loved one, claiming they have the tourist or illegal immigrant hostage and demand money for their safe return.

I happened to pick up this story on Fox News, which reported that Immigration and Customs in Phoenix gets a report about once a week of smugglers holding a hostage. Although 75 percent of them are real, about 25 percent are bogus, according to the story.

The reason the virtual scam works is probably that real cases of people being kidnapped are becoming commonplace south of the border. In April, CBS News reported that a hotline set up in Mexico City to deal with extortion cases had received 44,000 calls since December. The hotline statistics recorded were 22,851 extortion attempts avoided, 3,415 telephone numbers identified as being tied to extortionists, and 1,627 people who paid off the virtual kidnappers.

In another version of virtual kidnapping, an illegal immigrant already in the country is contacted and told that a family member is being held hostage in Mexico. It's not unknown for smugglers to hold onto a family member and extort money from illegal immigrants whom they have brought across the border. With all the real kidnapping going on, it makes sense that fake ones seem legitimate.

In April, the New York Times did another story on virtual kidnapping. In their article, they speculated that at least some of it was being done from Mexican prisons. Apparently, the guards look the other way as long as they get a cut of the action. The article also mentioned that besides virtual kidnapping, other telephone scams are rampant in Mexico, like the sweepstakes variety, a type of the infamous advance fee (419) scam.

Network World asked why this type of kidnapping is referred to as virtual. Paul McNamara wrote a interesting piece pointing out that the term "virtual" doesn't really fit in these cases. "The crime itself is horrific — beyond comprehension in its cruelty — so there's some hesitancy to complain about semantics. But this is a technology column and the underlying issue — society's tendency to blame modern-day bad deeds on technology instead of the bad-deed doers — is an important one," according to McNamara.

He makes a very good point: scams designed to part people from their hard-earned money didn't start with the computer age. Confidence tricks have been around for a long time and virtual kidnapping is merely that, a confidence trick. A good example is what is known as the Spanish Prisoner letter, where someone was tricked into thinking they were securing the release of a wealthy individual (who couldn't reveal their own identity) from prison in return for future compensation. This particular scam dates back to well over 100 years ago.

The Internet is full of too-good-to-be-true scams, which use greed to lure victims. Besides greed, fear is another lure scammers use. We see this on the Internet in threatening letters allegedly from government agencies, or even in what is known as the hit-man scam. In the hit-man scam, a person is intimidated into paying someone off to remove a contract that has supposedly been taken out on their life.

Scams using the telephone are becoming more and more common as well, dubbed "vishing." Here the telephone is used to perform confidence tricks of all sorts, and/or to steal personal and financial information later used in identity theft schemes.

This doesn't take away from the fact that a lot of people are victimized because of the not very secure situation we have on our border. It often seems that the criminals are more in control than the authorities, and besides confidence tricks, we see an overabundance of crimes that threaten public safety and, some say, our national security.

Until we take the control of the border away from criminals, we are going to continue seeing a lot of people victimized.

Will you be the next person arrested after a criminal borrows your identity?

With new Social Security verification laws on the horizon, up to 20 million illegal aliens are probably will have to come up with a legitimate identity in order to remain employed.

Up until now, anyone has been able to make up a number and pass it off with false identification. DHS (Department of Homeland Security) was supposed to begin going after businesses that employed people with "no match social security numbers" in September, but a law suit has temporarily blocked them from implementing the process.

Interestingly enough, one of the arguments is that Social Security records aren't accurate enough to ensure mistakes won't be made. This is probably a "no brainer" defense with all the fraud that exists with social security numbers.

Given that a lot of illegal immigrants look Hispanic, a lot of them will probably seek out legitimate identities of U.S. citizens with Hispanic surnames.

Hidden within the camoflauge that illegal immigration creates is a lot of criminal activity. When another person's identity is used to commit a crime, there is a potential that they are going to face more than financial problems after becoming a victim.

Here is a scary story -- possibly a premonition of things to come -- of a senior U.S. citizen, who obviously had his identity stolen by a criminal. The story also reveal why relying on social security numbers to identify people might lead to mistakes being made.

Eloisa Ruano Gonzalez of the Yakima Herald-Republic wrote:

It seemed like a bad dream when 72-year-old retiree Rafael "Ralph" Franco woke up to a loud pounding on his front door, opened it, and found four federal agents waiting to seize him.

The longtime Yakima resident was arrested about 6 a.m. on Nov. 28 at his South Second Street apartment. Immigration officers believed that Franco, a U.S. citizen, was an undocumented immigrant convicted of several alcohol- and weapon-related crimes.

Of course, Hispanic identities aren't the only ones used by criminals. In fact, there are more and more reports of innocent people being charged with crimes after a criminal assumes their identity, commits crimes and disappears into the mist after making bail or being released because the jail is full.

The issue of people wrongfully getting arrested because they are suspected of illegal immigration is probably only one small part of the overall problem.

Stealing personal and financial information and putting it on counterfeit documents has become an organized activity. I was recently in the Mission District of the sanctuary city of San Francisco and full sets were being offered, along with a variety of drugs for as little as $200.00. A full set is normally a drivers license, Social Security and green card.

Please note, I've personally seen this activity in other cities besides San Francisco. It's pretty much out in the open and little to nothing seems to be done about it.

Suad Leija -- the stepdaughter of the "Jefe" of an organized counterfeiting cartel --recently provided evidence to the government that counterfeiting documents is an extremely organized enterprise, which operates across the entire United States.

One of the more ironic things Suad was able to show the government was proof of her Uncle serving a prison sentence in Texas under an assumed name.

There is also considerable evidence that hackers have already stolen millions (billions?) of people's information and sell it pretty openly in anonymous Internet venues.

Put these two organized activities together and they will likely easily defeat any legislation requiring Social Security numbers to match.

I started this post with an observation about Hispanic identities being targeted, but the truth of the matter is that the 20 million or so illegal immigrants seeking legitimate identities is only one small part of a bigger problem. Even if the problem were simply related to illegal immigration -- people of Hispanic origin aren't the only ones crossing our borders illegally.

Figuring out exactly what country an illegal immigrant came from is difficult. Most of them aren't likely to reveal very many personal details. I was able to find a rather outdated study from DHS.gov that reveal some old statistics on the matter:

In October 1996, 15 countries were each the source of 40,000 or more undocumented immigrants (See Table 1). The top five countries are geographically close to the United States--Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Canada, and Haiti. Of the top 15 countries, only the Philippines, Poland, and Pakistan are outside the Western Hemisphere. The estimated undocumented population from Poland has declined by more than 25 percent, from 95,000 to 70,000, since 1988, possibly reflecting changed conditions in that country over the last several years.

Sara Carter of the Washington Times did an article in August about a report she saw from the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) that people of Middle Eastern/South Asian descent were posing as Hispanics. The article alleged that a partnership was being formed by something they have in common, or trafficking narcotics.

Even with NATO having boots on the ground in Afghanistan, opium production is at an all time high. Most of this is allegedly being bought by the Taliban, who now seem to operate pretty freely from the tribal areas in Pakistan.

Criminals trafficking narcotics aren't the only ones using false identities. In fact, more and more, the use of false (other people's) identities is being used to facilitate all kinds of criminal activity.

Identity theft may very become the great facilitator (enabler) of more and more crime. If criminals are able to get away with using someone else's identity, we are going to see a lot of more people victimized.

As long as we continue to consider identity theft a "low priority issue," it will continue to grow and multiply like a cancer.

The bottom line is that until we start addressing the factors that make enable stealing and using information too easy, we aren't going to fix the problem.

Doing this is going to take the cooperation of everyone from the average citizen to executive types in major corporations and our leaders in government.

Yakima Herald-Republic story, here.

Identity theft, the crime that can follow a person for years!

I first started reading David Lazarus at the San Francisco Chronicle early in 2006, when he wrote about a huge data breach that was later tied to Office Max. Please note that Office Max never quite admitted to being the point of compromise.

That data breach was tied to payment card fraud that spread quickly across the entire country.

Since then it's become very apparent that hackers have been targeting merchants for the credit/debit (payment) card information they've been storing in not very safe places.

David has left his digs at the San Francisco Chronicle and now writes for the LA Times.

In what appears to be his first story for them, he wanted to let his readers know:

The honchos here at the paper say I should devote my first column to introducing myself. At the moment, there's only one thing I want anyone to know about me: I'm not Derrick Davis.

And I want this guy out of my life once and for all.

David understands the frustration a lot of people go through when someone takes over their financial life.

In David's case, the person who stole his identity wasn't even here legally. Apparently, he was also able to use a social security number that didn't match his name to run up lines of credit and open checking accounts. It's amazing that the credit was issued, when discrepancies like these existed.

Davis was eventually caught, but only because David worked the case himself and had a sympathetic soul (Postal Inspector), who took the information for action.

Even then since Davis was an illegal immigrant, the worst that happened to him was being deported to Jamaica.

Trust me, catching an identity thief is rare and hard to accomplish, unless you know the right people. The odds of not getting caught are 99 to 1, according to statistics.

All of this occurred in 2003 and David is still suffering from the episode.

When he moved to LA from San Francisco and tried to buy a new house, David discovered that the credit bureaus were still listing some of the bad debt Davis created. The mortgage company even suggested that David pay the debt Davis had incurred to allow their deal to go through on schedule.

Being well connected, David was able to get a couple of comments from Linda Foley at the Identity Theft Resource Center:

The question is not if you'll become a victim of identity theft. It's when. It's the crime that keeps on giving. It's the never-ending story.

You think you get everything solved, and then it's like a ghost that reappears.

I'll follow David's work to the LA Times. I've always found him to be an excellent read and very knowledgeable on this subject. He has educated a lot of people this growing problem, and even has helped enact laws that protect people from this crime.

When I first started reading his articles, I had just discovered my information had been stolen in the compromise that Office Max never admitted to.

I guess I'll have to keep wondering if that unfortunate episode will come back to haunt me sometime in the future.

David's introduction to his new readers at the LA Times, here.

Will stricter enforcement cause more illegal immigrants to assume real people's social security numbers?

Will a crackdown on illegal immigration mean that 13 - 20 million people will need to use legitimate social security numbers to work? In response to increasing concerns about illegal immigration, the Department of Homeland Security provides what is known as the Basic Pilot Program (web based), which verifies the validity of a social security number.

The problem is that it only verifies, whether or not the number is good (matches). It doesn't show if the number is stolen, or even if the name matches the number.

Please note that this program is a great tool, but it isn't the only tool that should be used when verifying a person's identity. Even DHS is quick to point this out in the article I cite further down in this post.

You would think it would be in an employer's best interests to do a thorough background check. Employee fraud and abuse can cost them a lot of their hard-earned profits!

If certain employers use this tool and this tool alone will 13-20 million immigrants use 13-20 million legal citizens' social security numbers to obtain employment?

The LA Times did a story about a LA County financial crimes detective, who had his own identity stolen by illegal immigrant(s). The investigation of financial crimes normally involves investigating a lot of identity theft.

The victim in this case, Detective Flores eventually confirmed that at least one of the people using his identity had been picked up in the Swift raids, which occurred late last year.

Anna Gorman (LA Times) wrote:

Under pressure from federal authorities to verify their workers' legal status, more employers are checking the validity of Social Security numbers, and that has caused many illegal immigrants to use stolen rather than made-up numbers to get jobs, immigration officials said.

"It used to be that we would only see people come in with purely bogus documents," said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "More and more we are seeing real people, real victims."

Although the agency does not break out identity theft statistics, Myers said, "we are definitely seeing a trend."

To better protect their businesses, more employers are using the Department of Homeland Security's Basic Pilot program, which enables them to check the validity of Social Security numbers online. But Basic Pilot doesn't detect identity theft. As long as the name and Social Security number are legitimate, the online system will indicate the person using them is authorized to work.

Word of this weakness in the system has spread quickly among illegal immigrants and the document theft rings that cater to them. Thieves will dig through trash cans or scan the Internet looking for Social Security numbers. Sometimes, criminals or homeless people are willing to sell their identity documents, Myers said.

There also have been cases in which employers provide their workers with stolen numbers, Homeland Security authorities said.

Detective Flores didn't lose any money, but was threatened by collection agencies and the IRS. Like the many other victims of identity theft, he probably went through a lot of pain and suffering and spent countless hours clearing his name.

Trying to do the right thing, Detective Flores tried to have his social security number changed, but his request was refused.

If employers aren't checking very carefully and only using the Department of Homeland Security's Basic Pilot System, the background checks aren't likely to be very effective.

The trick would be to run Social Security Numbers verifying some minor details, which might include:

• Multiple names coming back to the same SSN (common).
• Geographical areas that don't match the stated history on the employment application.
• Discrepancies in ages, or where the social security number was issued.

This can be accomplished pretty easily by any employer. Even if an employer doesn't run a credit check, where discrepancies would normally surface, social security number traces are available from any of the major credit bureaus.

A social trace shows the name and address information, without the financial track record of the person.

There are privacy laws to protect this information -- but just about any legitimate employer can access this information, if they really want to -- and do so, legally. In most cases, a release form signed by the applicant is all that is needed. It isn't very hard to get someone to sign a release form, if they want a job.

Data brokers sell services to businesses, where social security numbers are easily run, also. If someone knows how to read these reports (they aren't difficult), it normally isn't very hard to find the real person (identity theft victim), when questionable activity is present. They are normally listed right on the report.

Besides performing background checks, social security traces are used to find people by law enforcement, collectors and private investigators. Financial crimes investigators (like Detective Flores) use them to find the people being impersonated by identity thieves, frequently.

A simple Google search on social security traces reveals how many vendors offer this service, here.

If illegal immigrants were using totally bogus social security numbers before, it isn't going to be hard for them to get real ones. This information is sold all over the place, including the Internet.

Organized criminal groups market both the information and documents on an economy of scale, which assures that their services are available to just about anyone for a nominal charge.

The bottom line is that it isn't hard for an employer to do an effective background, especially given the tools provided in the information age. In fact, a lot (most) of them already do this. As I stated earlier, employee fraud and abuse can be pretty detrimental to a company's bottom line.

As long as the jobs are available, illegal immigration will continue to be a big problem. If labor is needed and people want to realize the American dream, the people seeking the dream and those providing the jobs, need to accomplish their goals in a legal manner.

It isn't fair for them to accomplish their needs and goals at the expense (pain and suffering) of other people, who are following the law.

LA Times article, here.

Lou Dobbs discusses a holistic (common sense) approach to this problem on his television show and website. He also provides links to where all of us can let our politicians know how we feel about this problem.

Recently, the voice of the nation let them know exactly how we feel about this matter.

In the end, illegal immigrants might be the least of our worries. Activity like this shows how easily terrorists and criminals can operate inside our borders, also. This is probably the best argument (I know of) for why we can no longer afford to let criminals control our borders.

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

Why Illegal Immigration Benefits No One

No one faults the hard working illegal immigrant, who is trying to pursue the dream of a better life, or escape poverty. The problem is the criminal activity that goes along with the trade. There is nothing noble about drug smuggling, kidnapping, bondage, identity theft and a host of financial crimes that tie into the trade in human flesh.

Organized criminals run this business and they engage in multiple streams of income, often using the illegal aliens in their other illegal activities. Unfortunately, it seems that legitimate corporations are knowingly complicit in the activity, also.

Here is a quote in a recent story from the New York Times:

Saying the hiring by companies nationwide of millions of undocumented workers is often a form of organized crime, Mr. Chertoff, a former federal prosecutor, said the government will now attempt to combat the practice with techniques similar to those used to try to shut down the mob.

"We target those organizations, we use intelligence to define the scope of the organization, and then we use all of the tools we have whether it's criminal enforcement or the immigration laws to make sure we come down as hard as possible and break the back of those organizations," Mr. Chertoff said during a news conference at the headquarters of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division.

IFCO Systems North America, the subject of the recent raid was also found to be supporting the identity theft crisis:

Company supervisors knowingly hired illegal immigrants, provided them with housing and transportation to and from work, and even reimbursed one undercover agent for the cost of obtaining fraudulent identity documents, Homeland Security Department officials said.

An examination of the company's payroll of 5,800 employees found that just over half of them had Social Security numbers that were either invalid, belong to a dead person or did not match up with names on file, investigators said.

Link to article, here.

There have been a lot of updates to this story. The LA Times is quoting a federal agent as saying the illegal immigrants were working in unsafe conditions.

"There was a lot of drilling, cutting, dismantling of old pallets, pneumatic nail guns, power saws. Most of these guys were working in jeans, tennis shoes, short-sleeve shirts; some had sawdust in their hair," he said. "No legal facility would let workers work in those conditions."

There is nothing honorable about this trade and it is shameful that certain seemingly legitimate corporations are in collusion with organized criminal activity. Substandard working conditions and the host of crimes that go along with this trade victimize everyone (including the illegal immigrant) so the few (primarily criminals) can reap enormous profits.

So far as the other criminal and potential terrorist activity that goes along with unsecured borders, here is a link to a previous post I wrote.