Department of Justice Uncovers Massive Credit Card Fraud Scheme
Holes in cross-channel, cross-account monitoring by banking institutes may be to blame.
A massive criminal scheme involving 13 individuals and crossing multiple state and international boarders has been uncovered by the Department of Justice. The criminals built an enterprise by using fake identities to create fraudulent credit profiles and taking out large loans from credit bureaus which would never be repaid.
These recent events bring to light the holes in cross-channel and cross-account monitoring by banking institutions. Millions of dollars were moved from account to account, each controlled by the perpetrators. Millions of dollars were also wired to overseas accounts including Pakistan, India, Canada, Romania, China, and Japan. In total, 169 bank accounts, 25,000 credit cards, and 7,000 false identities are estimated to have been used by the criminals in their fraudulent activities. Current figures find that losses may total more than $200 million.
Director of AML market planning for LexisNexis’ financial services division, Micah Willbrand, insists that such activities should have raised flags sooner. Banking institutions usually only confirm the identity of an account owner once, then never again. Willbrand contests, “if they had gone back to review some of these identities in this case, then some of that would have come out sooner.”
Original article by Tracy Kitten.
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