Utilizing flats within the San Fernando Valley and Glendale space, a shadowy group of id thieves has been quietly exploiting a brand new sort of sufferer — international students who left the U.S. years in the past however whose Social Safety numbers nonetheless linger in American databases, in line with a cybercrime professional.
Criminals are resurrecting these dormant identities and submitting a whole bunch of purposes 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 traces of credit score whereas unknowing victims reside 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}, reside 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 purposes 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: a whole bunch of purposes submitted to main credit score issuers from a set of comparable California avenue addresses and IP addresses in September.
As they sifted by way of the information, 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 lately as 2024.
These students have been required to acquire Social Safety numbers to work on campus in roles corresponding to analysis or instructing assistants, postdoctoral fellows or visiting lecturers. They’re now not dwelling within the U.S., however their private data stays scattered throughout college databases and credit score bureaus, which in line with Maimon makes them prime prey for opportunistic hackers and fraudsters.
Ought to victimized students search to return to the U.S., they’d encounter a large pile of debt and a crippling credit score rating that would stop them from gaining work or housing, Maimon stated. In the meantime, monetary establishments are chargeable for the debt, which may in the end enhance the price of their companies to all prospects, he added.
Many of the purposes 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 doubtless that crime ring members use addresses they’ve entry to in order that they will decide 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 recognized for conducting subtle monetary crimes.
He additionally famous that students from Turkey, Armenia’s historic rival, accounted for about half of all fraudulent purposes. The rest have been impersonating students from a wide range of nations corresponding 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 imagine that these guys are basically stealing all these identities and utilizing them so as to create all these financial institution accounts and credit score traces.”
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 usually 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 accountable for a good portion of organized monetary crime in L.A. County.
“We run into lots of subtle Armenian crime teams which can be specialists on id theft,” he stated. “That’s what they do for a dwelling and [they] make some huge cash.”
The Sheriff’s Division will not be 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 matter. The Burbank Police Division declined to remark.
Maimon has not reported his findings to authorities, partly as a consequence 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 data 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 as a consequence 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 purposes utilizing the identities of former international students. As soon as purposes are flagged, the establishment asks for added verification data, which it very hardly ever receives.
Main information hacks have uncovered hundreds of thousands of People’ private data, 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 line 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 title, date of delivery and Social Safety quantity, they will 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 particular person holding the picture ID and turning their head facet to facet, which is an extra safety requirement at some establishments.
Each the ID and the particular person are faux 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 conceal behind an online of shadowy IP addresses. As well as, there may be usually a big delay between when fraud is dedicated and when the sufferer finds out — typically by receiving a letter from a group company months later, at which level the proof path could have gone chilly, Diana stated.
“We’re typically a day late and a greenback brief,” Diana stated.
Within the case of the international students’ stolen identities, the victims could 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 often checking their credit score rating.
He recommends individuals lock their credit score on the three main credit score bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. That method, if somebody tries to open a fraudulent line of credit score, the monetary establishment will likely be unable to entry their credit score report and possibly will deny the applying.
Lastly, if anybody is a sufferer of id theft, they need to report it to a credit score bureau, the FTC and native legislation enforcement, he stated.
