Uncle Sam Does More Than Slap Wrists For ID Theft
They were living high on the hog – BMWs, motorcycles, trips and fancy hotels and Dallas strip clubs every night. What they didn’t know was that the net carefully being laid by the Secret Service for two years was closing in.
Homeless People Used as Pawns
When Naval Petty Officer and former US Naval payroll clerk Cora Dixon decided that the men and women she worked with were easy pickings for ID theft, she didn’t take into account the government’s fury at someone who would take advantage of the nation’s military.
The Texas woman and five others, including her boyfriend Seneca Wills, rounded up over 70 homeless people, cleaned them up and manufactured false IDs for them, then paid them with drugs to cash check she had forged using the identification she had lifted from records at the Joint Reserve Base in Ft Worth.
Partying Thieves
The ring had spent over a million dollars when one of them was arrested for refusing to move his car from a fire lane. Inside the car, police found various forms of identification. The trail led them to the rest of the gang, which by that time included a former Bank of America teller, one Angel Mitchell, who had been accepting bribes of $100 a pop for accessing accounts for the ring.
RICO Charges?!
This was one of the largest rings ever apprehended in North Texas, and the charges kept pace – instead of the usual allegations of unlawful access and regular ID theft, the charges against Wills and Dixon actually include Organized Crime – which just goes to show you shouldn’t mess with Uncle Sam’s troops.
In all, the identities of over 8,000 servicemen were compromised. Of those, police say over 100 were actually used to cash counterfeit checks and fund the purchase of high-priced cars, bikes and trips; all of the 8,000 have been informed that their information had been compromised so they can take steps to safeguard their identity and credit.
Steps to take once there has been a breach include checking your credit reports, watching for unusual account behavior, and even putting a freeze on your SSN to stop any unlawful activity.
