U.S. Attorney warns Crime Watch members about rise in identity theft

U.S. Attorney warns Crime Watch members about rise in identity theft

Identity theft is the No. 1 consumer complaint in the country and Florida tops the list for the most reported cases nationwide, said Wifredo Ferrer, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

“The problem that we’re having with identity theft is it’s not coming from just one source,” Ferrer said. “It’s either a waiter at some restaurant with a skimmer or a hacker sitting in his kitchen in a foreign country using malicious software to get into our databases and stealing hundreds of thousands of identities.”

Ferrer spoke to 105 people at the annual Palm Beach Crime Watch members breakfast Tuesday at The Colony. Public Safety Director Kirk Blouin introduced Ferrer. The Southern District of Florida has more than 250 attorneys who try more cases than any other U.S. Attorney’s Office in the nation, said Ferrer, who’s held the office for five years. Many identity thieves are employees in large organizations — such as hospitals or schools — with access to personal information.” Those are the individuals who, for a little bit of money, will sell our information,” he said. “It’s difficult for big organizations to keep an eye on each employee every single day. ”Identity-theft tax fraud — stealing personal information and filing bogus tax returns — is prevalent and has been perpetrated by people from every walk of life, Ferrer said.

Marines in Afghanistan have stolen their fellow Marines’ identities and filed their tax returns for refunds, he said. Former NFL players also have been indicted for that crime, he said. The IRS and inspector general have reported more than $21 billion has been lost to criminals stealing others’ tax refunds, he said. In 2012, Ferrer created a 20-agency federal and state task force to help combat the crime of identity-theft tax fraud.“ Crime is a business. It’s all about the money, and you have all types of cases,” he said. “Since we started this task force, we’ve indicted over 300 individuals who were responsible for over $490 million in intended loss from the IRS.”

Ferrer advised filing tax returns as early as possible to beat identity thieves from filing the same information and mail returns in official U.S. Postal Service mailboxes. Do not leave returns in home mailboxes because it can easily be stolen. He also advised to shred all financial information before putting it in the trash. Suzanne Beck said Ferrer made her aware of the magnitude of identity theft and intends to pass the message along to others.” He covered so many great ideas of what to do and what not to do regarding identity theft,” said Beck, a longtime Crime Watch member. “I was appalled by the numbers of people that are involved in this type of crime and how easily it could be perpetrated.”

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