Identity theft
Editorial
Stabroek News
March 22, 2003
Anyone who has ever had the validity of their perfectly legal documents doubted, who has been questioned, refused service, or in any way inconvenienced would have experienced that feeling of embarrassed irritation which comes with such an incident. Sometimes even the humblest of apologies fails to assuage the consequent frustration. But systems which check and counter-check have become necessary because of the burgeoning problem of identity theft around the world.
There is nothing new about criminals using aliases to evade the law. Fake names, addresses and dates of birth are being used universally to dupe law enforcement officials. But the real trouble starts when this information is not bogus, but has been stolen. Unless the criminal was previously fingerprinted under his/her real name, even the most complex police checks will reveal little but that the information given is genuine.
Just last month, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) had a 72-year-old man arrested and detained in a South African prison for more than two weeks, on charges that he was wanted in the US for a multi-million dollar telemarketing fraud. Derek Bond, a British citizen though obviously no relation to 007 James, protested his arrest and insisted on his innocence to no avail. He was not interviewed until ten days after his arrest and it was another week before the FBI realised that they had the wrong man. It was later ascertained that the details of Bond’s passport, which had been stolen and replaced, had been used undetected for 14 years to create an alternative identity for Derek Lloyd Sykes, who has since been arrested and charged.
In a not dissimilar incident, a man called Edgar Garfield Gibbons had been deported to Guyana by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 1999 and though he protested that he was not a Guyanese, was left here as a guest of the state. Nearly a year later, after Stabroek News learned of the man’s existence and investigated, the Guyanese Edgar Garfield Gibbons was found living and working legally in the US. He revealed that he had lost his alien registration (green) card 16 years before, had reported it to the INS and was issued with a replacement. The other Gibbons, who had served time in prison before his deportation, was returned to the US while the INS took on the task of trying to find out exactly who he was.
While the motive for appropriating personal information is usually theft, immigration fraud is becoming increasingly pervasive, largely because of its lucrative nature but also because it is so easy to do. Last November, the House of Lords’ European Union Committee report on illegal immigration made known that a police check on data in the Passport Office, codenamed Operation Wisdom had found that criminals had stolen the identities of more than 1,000 babies who died before their first birthdays. Operation Wisdom discovered that applications for passports, driving licences and National Insurance numbers had been successfully made using details of children who died many years ago. The police were only able to find and arrest 39 people.
In New Zealand a couple were tried and subsequently deported for stealing babies’ names off headstones in a graveyard. In Ireland, an international gang was found using the same method and selling the passports to illegal immigrants and criminals for up to £10,000 each. This scam was originally highlighted by Frederick Forsyth in his best selling novel The Day of the Jackal. But this is by no means the only way of acquiring and stealing personal information, sophisticated con artists are now using the technology available through the internet, which is less easy to trace.
In a variation of an e-mail scam made popular by Nigerians, other scammers are trying to take advantage of heightened interest in Iraq, posing as frightened Iraqis trying to move money out of that country. The writer claims to be the son of a victim of oppression in Iraq, whose father has been arrested for allegedly financing the opposition and supporting the Americans. He claims his father is wealthy and asks for the reader’s bank details so that the equivalent of US$120 million could safely be transferred out of Iraq before the government seizes it. The reader is offered US$20 million for his role. The rest is history.
Identity theft cost an estimated £1.3 billion in the UK in 2002 - an increase of 50% on 2001’s figures. There were an estimated 70,000 victims, up from 2,200 three years ago. And in the US, ID thieves stole nearly $100 million from financial institutions last year. But not many ID thieves are prosecuted, because they often cannot be found. Victims, however, have to deal with the feelings of hurt and abuse at having their personal details stolen as well as anger at being duped. Identity theft and its consequences are not easy lessons and are far better learnt from a distance.
