Paper Shredding News

Woman charged with fraud after health-department identity thefts A Clermont woman was arrested Tuesday on charges of filing $4 million in fraudulent income-tax returns using information that prosecutors say was provided by two Orange County health-department employees. A federal indictment charging Tanya M. Fox, 38, with conspiracy, wire fraud, theft of government property and aggravated…

Tax preparer pleads guilty in identity theft and tax fraud scheme Oakland Park tax preparer Louis A. Francois pled guilty Thursday to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, according to United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Wifredo A. Ferrer. Francois, 44, of Margate, is scheduled to…

Florida leads nation in fraud complaints Florida ranks first in the country in the number of fraud complaints last year, with nearly 1,000 complaints per 100,000 people A large population of older residents who are considered more vulnerable to scams and a great number of foreclosures are among the reasons for the state’s number of…

Texas tax fraud case puts focus on identity theft DALLAS (AP) — The recent case of a Texas man convicted of tax fraud highlights one part of the lucrative black market for stolen personal information that the IRS estimates altogether costs U.S. taxpayers more than $6 billion a year. Luigi Montes was sentenced in 2013…

Former TD Bank employee, accomplice pleads guilty to identity theft A former TD Bank employee and her accomplice pleaded guilty to stealing identities to commit tax fraud. Tenisha Nkesha Francis, a former financial services representative at TD Bank from Lake Worth, and Ryan Michael Francis, of Riviera Beach, both pled guilty to federal charges of…

Woman receives FedEx box of strangers’ sensitive documents Paging Sherlock Holmes. Your talents of deduction are needed to help solve the mystery of a woman who says she received a FedEx box full of strangers’ credit card information and medical records. Jerri Crabtree told CBS-Sacramento that she has no idea why the documents were sent…

Fort Lauderdale woman pleads guilty in identity theft check-cashing scheme A Fort Lauderdale woman is facing up to 12 years in prison after pleading guilty in an estimated $5.3 million identity theft and check-cashing scheme, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer announced Friday. Regina James, 38, was one of seven people working for Wilson Lau, 76,…

South Florida #1 in U.S. for identity theft: Why? PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. – A new report from the Federal Trade Commission has found that South Florida is ‘number one’ when it comes to the fastest growing crime in America. Identity theft occurs every three seconds – and too often it is happening in the…

Man sues bank after identity theft nightmare Being a victim of identity theft is never fun, but one man in Florida had an especially terrible time with it. In 2011, Carlos Gomez was arrested in the middle of the night for money laundering, which got him two weeks in a federal detention center and seven…

Peabody man sentenced to 7 years in identity theft case A Peabody man was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in prison for leading an identity theft ring that used the identities of a Florida company’s employees to make $375,000 in bogus charges at retail stores, federal prosecutors said. William Dodge, 46, was also sentenced to…