Identity Thieves: Motives and Methods

Introduction

1 introduction The 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can portrayed the life and crimes of Frank abagnale, perhaps one of the most famous fraudsters in american history. he gained notoriety for the young age (sixteen ) at which he began his crimes, and for the daring and creative methods he used to con people into thinking he was a pan am airline pilot, a pediatrician in atlanta, and an attorney in the Louisiana attorney general’s office, to name a few of his impersonations. although the bulk of his crimes involved forgery, without the use of other people’s identities, he did engage in identity theft earlier in his criminal career. after all, he couldn’t cash a check without a bank account, and opening an account required some form of identification. to commit his crimes, abagnale needed more than one account and more than one identity. during five years on the run, abagnale defrauded banks of an estimated $2.5 million. This level of success required a great deal of skill, effort, and access to expensive, hard-to-find equipment. occurring before the large-scale computerization of personal records and the birth of the Internet, abagnale’s task required physical trips to departments of vital records for copies of death certificates. Using the identities of deceased infants who shared the year of his birth (1948), abagnale secured a driver’s license in every state. Creating fraudulent checks was even more difficult. readers may recall a scene in Catch Me If You Can in which abagnale (played by Leonardo diCaprio) climbs the scaffolding surrounding an enormous printer, to load the paper necessary to produce company payroll checks. The printer, purchased at a cost of $1 million, was ninety feet long and eighteen feet high.1 Moviegoers were likely in awe of abagnale’s enterprising methods and the sheer audacity with which he conned people. These 2 identity thieves fascinating aspects of his story made it worthy of a hollywood movie but, precisely because they were so extraordinary, most viewers sensed that few people could have been as successful as abagnale at such frauds. similarly, the daring schemes and high costs certainly would have discouraged abagnale’s contemporaries from considering such fraud as a viable way to obtain money. In short, most people simply couldn’t have done what he did. Flash forward to the first decade of the twenty-first century and the opportunity for fraud is quite different. Identity thieves now can be successful even if they don’t possess the cunning and charisma of Frank abagnale. Whereas he had to charm information from those in charge of data (what hackers call social engineering), contemporary identity thieves can simply send phishing e-mails, locate discarded information, or hire people to log on to computers and access identifying information. advancements in computer technology and networking have provided offenders with new tools and emerging opportunities to steal or exploit information for profit. Consider how technology has changed the ways people communicate and conduct everyday transactions. From the comfort of your own home, you can use a relatively inexpensive computer to register for classes at the local college, order phone service, “chat” with a friend living across the globe through instant messaging, and purchase merchandise not available in your home town. Without a doubt, such reliance on technology has created new opportunities for those inclined toward fraud. although the use of technology to communicate and conduct everyday business is convenient, it also has a downside. By participating in these electronic transactions, you might be making your personal information—including name, address, social security number, credit card numbers, or passwords—vulnerable to theft. to steal such information, an identity thief merely has to find a company employee willing to retrieve it, or hire the services of a computer hacker who can access data from another location. While technology has made it easier to quickly retrieve large amounts of information, it also has made it easier to illegally turn that information into profit. remote transactions make it simpler for thieves introduction 3 to pose as others. after opening bank or credit card accounts from the safety of a computer, thieves can then shop for merchandise at brick-and-mortar stores or simply place orders online and never have to come in contact with another person. advances in digital technology also have made it simpler and cheaper to forge paper documents. If abagnale...