Utilizing flats within the San Fernando Valley and Glendale space, a shadowy group of id thieves has been quietly exploiting a brand new form of sufferer — international students who left the U.S. years in the past however whose Social Safety numbers nonetheless linger in American databases, in accordance with a cybercrime knowledgeable.
Criminals are resurrecting these dormant identities and submitting tons of of functions for financial institution accounts and bank cards, says David Maimon, head of fraud insights at SentiLink and a criminology professor at Georgia State College. The Southern California-based fraudsters can then max out strains of credit score whereas unknowing victims stay midway the world over, he says.
Sgt. Frank Diana, with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Division Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau, stated organized crime rings within the county are extremely expert at stealing identities, concealing their IP addresses and laundering their loot to make it exhausting to detect.
Native id crime rings “are doing it to make hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, stay in good homes, all on the expense of taxpayers,” Diana stated. “It’s not their cash, however they’re dwelling like kings.”
Maimon and his colleague Karl Lubenow stated they uncovered this tactic of stealing international students’ IDs by way of their work at SentiLink, an organization that works with monetary establishments to confirm identities and detect fraud.
At first they have been requested to look at functions the place international film stars and athletes have been most likely being impersonated.
Within the course of, they stated, their investigation unearthed one thing a lot bigger: tons of of functions submitted to main credit score issuers from a set of comparable California road addresses and IP addresses in September.
As they sifted by way of the recordsdata, they noticed that, along with concentrating on a handful of international celebrities, the fraudsters have been impersonating scores of former international students who had come to the U.S. as way back as 1977 and left as just lately as 2024.
These students have been required to acquire Social Safety numbers to work on campus in roles comparable to analysis or instructing assistants, postdoctoral fellows or visiting lecturers. They’re now not dwelling within the U.S., however their private info stays scattered throughout faculty databases and credit score bureaus, which in accordance with Maimon makes them prime prey for opportunistic hackers and fraudsters.
Ought to victimized students search to return to the U.S., they might encounter an enormous pile of debt and a crippling credit score rating that would forestall them from gaining work or housing, Maimon stated. In the meantime, monetary establishments are answerable for the debt, which may finally improve the price of their companies to all prospects, he added.
Many of the functions that Maimon recognized as fraudulent originated at flats at six key addresses in Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Toluca Lake, Glendale and Thai City. It’s seemingly that crime ring members use addresses they’ve entry to in order that they’ll choose up bank cards, checks and different delicate paperwork despatched within the mail, Maimon stated.
The nexus of those addresses falls within the Burbank and Glendale space, which Maimon factors out is the house of Armenian Energy, an organized crime group identified for conducting subtle monetary crimes.
He additionally famous that students from Turkey, Armenia’s historic rival, accounted for about half of all fraudulent functions. The rest have been impersonating students from a wide range of international locations comparable to Japan, India, the Netherlands, Portugal and Greece.
“They [Armenian Power] have been concerned in id theft and white-collar crime for the final 15 years or so,” Maimon stated. “It leads us to consider that these guys are primarily stealing all these identities and utilizing them to be able to create all these financial institution accounts and credit score strains.”
Sgt. Diana stated that the ways utilized by the alleged id theft ring that Maimon found align with these typically utilized by Armenian crime teams, which are typically based mostly within the Burbank and Glendale areas.
Though Diana doesn’t know whether or not Armenian teams are behind fraud makes an attempt concentrating on international students, he stated these teams are chargeable for a good portion of organized monetary crime in L.A. County.
“We run into a number of subtle Armenian crime teams which might be consultants on id theft,” he stated. “That’s what they do for a dwelling and [they] make some huge cash.”
The Sheriff’s Division just isn’t presently investigating any id theft circumstances involving international students, he stated. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Division stated the division didn’t presently have any investigations associated to this subject. The Burbank Police Division declined to remark.
Maimon has not reported his findings to authorities, partly because of worry of retaliation from the criminals concerned, he stated. His earlier efforts to shine a light-weight on fraudsters led to his Social Safety quantity and private info being launched on the darkish net, leading to years of id theft makes an attempt, he stated.
He has reported his findings to the affected monetary establishments by way of his function as a fraud investigator.
One of many monetary establishments, which didn’t want to be named because of safety issues, stated in a press release that it first realized one thing was awry after seeing a collection of suspicious high-dollar transactions in L.A. and Kern counties coming from accounts within the Glendale space. Nearly all of the account holders solely had addresses relationship again to 2023 and really restricted credit score historical past.
The establishment stated it was persevering with to obtain fraudulent functions utilizing the identities of former international students. As soon as functions are flagged, the establishment asks for added verification info, which it very not often receives.
Main knowledge hacks have uncovered hundreds of thousands of Individuals’ private info, which is now available for buy on the darkish net, Diana stated.
In 2024, the Federal Commerce Fee obtained greater than 1.1 million id theft complaints and about 2.6 million complaints of associated fraud leading to whole monetary losses of greater than $12.7 billion, in accordance with a report by client credit score reporting firm Experian.
Maimon stated that synthetic intelligence has elevated the benefit with which criminals can perform id theft.
As soon as fraudsters have obtained a sufferer’s identify, date of beginning and Social Safety quantity, they’ll simply use AI instruments to generate an image of a driver’s license or passport. They will even create a realistic-looking video of an AI individual holding the picture ID and turning their head aspect to aspect, which is an extra safety requirement at some establishments.
Each the ID and the individual are pretend on this video, an instance of how AI can be utilized to attempt to evade safety measures at monetary establishments.
Id fraud circumstances are additionally notoriously troublesome to prosecute as criminals cover behind an internet of shadowy IP addresses. As well as, there may be usually a major delay between when fraud is dedicated and when the sufferer finds out — typically by receiving a letter from a set company months later, at which level the proof path might have gone chilly, Diana stated.
“We’re typically a day late and a greenback quick,” Diana stated.
Within the case of the international students’ stolen identities, the victims might by no means discover out, offering much more safety for the Southern California perpetrators.
Diana warns all Angelenos to stay vigilant for indicators of id theft by ceaselessly checking their credit score rating.
He recommends individuals lock their credit score on the three main credit score bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. That approach, if somebody tries to open a fraudulent line of credit score, the monetary establishment will probably be unable to entry their credit score report and possibly will deny the appliance.
Lastly, if anybody is a sufferer of id theft, they need to report it to a credit score bureau, the FTC and native regulation enforcement, he stated.
