US Attorney Focuses ID Theft Operations on Alien Documents

US Attorney Focuses ID Theft Operations on Alien Documents

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

As part of year-long push to prosecute identity thieves, the U-S Attorney’s office in Nashville has targeted immigrant cases.

Since September of last year, the Middle District of Tennessee has charged 38 defendants with various forms of identity theft. Of the 11 cases the office heralds as examples of the crackdown, six – more than half – involve low-level forgery by Hispanic immigrants of documents like Social Security cards and work visas.

U-S Attorney Ed Yarbrough says, however, such forgery rings can have connections to terrorist organization like al-Qaeda.

“The local cell may not be involved in any terrorist activity. In fact, mostly likely they’re not because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves. But with their illegal activities in drugs, identity theft or both, they’re funneling money – illegal money - back to these other operations.”

Even though his office hasn’t found links to global terrorism in Middle Tennessee, Yarbrough says cases that have an immigrant component take first priority. He says the Department of Justice has been focused on immigrant ID theft cases since 9/11. The plane highjackers were originally believed to have used stolen identities. They used fraudulent documents to enter the country, but ended up using their real names to board the planes.

By Blake Farmer