One victim was a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Another was a woman whom the Internal Revenue Service accused of not paying taxes on $120,000 in earnings that were news to her.
Court documents released Tuesday showed how some victims had their identities stolen by workers who used them to get jobs at Swift & Co., a meatpacking plant in Greeley. Still other victims had no clue how Swift employees used their identities to find jobs, open credit accounts and even collect unemployment benefits.
The lesson: Government isn’t going to save citizens from identity theft, said Rick Johnson, immediate past president of the Professional Private Investigators Association of Colorado. The greatest measure people can take to protect themselves is just that – self-protection.
“People are careless with their personal information,” Johnson said. “Their bank accounts. Their health information. They don’t use shredders at home. They just throw stuff away.”
Indeed, some people who reported identity theft that was traced to Swift plants in six states said they had lost their wallets and purses. One woman claimed her ex-husband stole her Social Security number. A Colorado man filed a police report telling authorities he had lost his Social Security number and birth certificate while moving.
“People don’t want to hear it, but (carelessness), that’s what it is,” Johnson said. “When something gets lost, they squawk to someone else to take care of it. But it starts at home. Take care of your own stuff.”
For only $80 to $300
As a federal grand jury in Denver recently discovered, the cost of a new, stolen identity is relatively low.
Once your information is pilfered, it’s not hard for it to be used illegally. In June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents busted one of the largest multistate document- fraud rings in the country. A federal grand jury in Denver indicted Pedro Castorena, who was arrested in Mexico by authorities there.
For $80 to $300, buyers allegedly could get Social Security cards with valid numbers, state identification cards, birth certificates and other documents from the ring – allegedly headed by Castorena – which is believed to have operated out of metro Denver laundries, a meat market and a flea market.
It appears all the suspects rounded up in Greeley on Tuesday were Latino and were using identification belonging to legal U.S. residents with Latino surnames. Over the course of their nine-month investigation, authorities compared legitimate driver’s license photos of victims to photos of the suspects and determined they weren’t looking at the same person.
The niece of one identity-theft victim was overjoyed when told that a man suspected of stealing her uncle’s ID had been arrested.
“Thank God,” said Arlene Juarez of Bakersfield, Calif.
Arlene is the niece of Aaron Rey Juarez, who told authorities he had lost his wallet. Because of the ID theft, authorities have targeted Juarez for not paying child support – for children who aren’t even his, Arlene Juarez said.
“He needs a whole new Social Security number,” she said. “Every time they do a credit check, it’s fraud this or fraud that.”
Experts say identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the country – and that current government systems in place to identify illegal use of employment documents are broken.
For example, when an employer submits a Social Security number to the Social Security Administration for verification, the administration will confirm the number exists and to whom the number belongs.
However, the administration does not do a sweep to determine how many times or where a Social Security number is used around the country for employment.
Two U.S. agencies at odds
In 2001, Swift & Co. found itself between a rock and a hard place in its hiring practices.
To compound the problem, government agencies – particularly ICE and the U.S. Department of Labor – often appear to work against each other, said Sam Rovit, Swift & Co.’s president and chief executive. In 2001, Swift was fined for discriminating against employees because it asked for more documentation than is allowed by federal law.
“You have a guardrail saying, ‘Hire legal workers.’ And then you have another that says, ‘Don’t ask too many questions and discriminate on ethnic and racial origins,”‘ Rovit said. Employers are “required to take any documents an applicant shows us at face value.”
Some of the suspects had been using bogus identification at Swift – much of it from states outside Colorado – for years.
“There are different approaches state by state, and their rigor for giving identification is very different,” Rovit said. “One state may have a lower hurdle than another to get an ID or a driver’s license.”
Johnson, the private investigator, said people can take several steps to protect themselves from identity theft:
Review a credit report at least once every three months. Credit statements will reveal who has opened accounts or has reviewed a credit history.
Clean your wallet. “I have had a Social Security card since I was 16, and I have never carried it with me,” Johnson said. “Two credit cards, max. You don’t need any more than that.”
Never give personal information on the Web or by telephone unless you’re absolutely sure who you’re giving it to and for what specific purpose.
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