New Mexico the Hub for Undocumented Immigrants

Attracted by a 2003 law, people from all over the world are traveling to New Mexico to obtain driver's licenses because the state doesn't require proof of citizenship or legal residency. According to a copyright story Friday in the Albuquerque Journal, authorities have arrested a growing number of suspected undocumented immigrants who have traveled from as far away as China to fraudulently obtain New Mexico licenses. The Associated Press reported last summer that three states — Washington, New Mexico and Utah — were seeing surges in the number of immigrants seeking IDs, a trend experts attributed to crackdowns on illegal immigration in Arizona and elsewhere.

Shu Sheng Lui told a state police officer Wednesday she had flown to Albuquerque from Missouri and paid a man $500 to help her get a New Mexico driver's license. Lui, 33, along with Hiew Fongyee, 31, and Lam Fong Siu, 44, were arrested at a state Motor Vehicle Division office in Albuquerque's south valley after they tried to obtain licenses using forged residency documents. According to criminal complaints, the Chinese nationals had paid 22-year-old Gordon Leong for forged documents showing they live in New Mexico so they could obtain driver's licenses. Leong was arrested and charged with conspiracy. Lui faces the same charge. Fongyee and Siu, who both live in New York, were charged with one count of altered, forged or fictitious license.

"It shows that we have a good process in place that is meant to detect any fraud or anyone trying to get a license without proper documentation," MVD spokesman S.U. Mahesh said. New Mexico residents have generally opposed the state's driver's license law, according to a recent Albuquerque Journal poll that found that 67 percent of residents are against it. On the campaign trail, Gov.-elect Susana Martinez pledged that she would work to revoke licenses issued to foreign nationals under the law.

Read more...

Over $3 Billion in Fraud Recoveries Under the False Claims Act in FY 2010

Taxpayers Against Fraud calculates the U.S. Department of Justice recovered over $3.1 billion of America's stolen money in Fiscal Year 2010 thanks to whistleblowers and the federal False Claims Act. More than 80 percent of all successful False Claims Act recoveries are brought to the government by whistleblowers and their lawyers, making the law the most important tool the U.S. Government has in the war against fraud. The False Claims Act provides for triple damages plus statutory fines of up to $11,000 per false claim. Whistleblowers that bring evidence of fraud to the U.S. Government are eligible for awards of 15 to 30 percent of the total amount recovered under the Act.

Read more...

More Victims Reporting Driver's License Scam

In April, Greg Lapore said he got a new drivers license in the mail, but the photo and name on the license was not his. The name on the license said Paulo Cruz-Rangel, although the address belonged to Lapore. Lapore said he does not know Cruz-Rangel. According to investigators, they are now learning about a new scam plaguing innocent residents in the Albuquerque, New Mexico area. They said illegal immigrants are traveling from eight different states, selecting random Albuquerque addresses and filling out change of address forms, to get false residential documents and then obtain drivers licenses.

According to State Tax and Fraud investigator Alvan Romero, this scam can ruin a person financially. Originally, 24 victims were identified. Since the story aired on Action 7 News last week, more than a dozen victims have come forward. "We consider this a public service announcement. We want to get this out to everyone," said Romero. Luckily, Lapore intercepted the ID before a complete stranger got it. He called the post office and the MVD. "If somebody else would have had a valid drivers license with my address on it, who knows what kind of problems they would've caused," said Lapore.

Read more...

Fraudsters now targeting malware to individual consumers

When it comes to email most marketers know they must follow white-hat policies. Have email authenticated, use valid subject lines, clean the list regularly and pay attention to sender reputation. Despite this consumers are defrauded daily by fraudulent emails, making it more and more difficult for legitimate marketers to engage consumers. According to Symantec's MessageLabs, a new threat is now at the horizon: targeted, fraudulent emails. The research lab has identified Olympic-themed emails which appear to be legitimate - the messages even have actual travel and Olympic links - but hidden inside the message is an i-frame which could leave malware of consumer computers.

"We have seen three instances of this attack so far in February," said Paul Wood, Senior Intelligence Analyst with MessageLabs. "[This is] a very small number in terms of global malware, but by its nature it is not designed to be widespread. This targeted attack is meant to attempt to gain access to a small number of specific users' machines. If just one gets through, the damage to the victim could be substantial." The messages contained subject lines such as "Information and resources to help you travel during the 2010 Winter Games" and "How to make Olympics more interesting". The body of the messages seems innocuous, but an attached program file then attempts to install malware on the person's computer.

This is another example of why sender reputation is so important for legitimate email marketers and why white hat practices should always be followed. Consumers, more than ever, are smart about which emails they open but some are still fooled by spammers. A consumer only has to be burned once to never again open a message sent from someone other than a personal friend. By following the 'best practices' there is a better chance that consumers will actually open real email messages.

Read more...

Canadian E-Mail Fraud Tries to Extract Money

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center (CAFC) are cautioning netizens that an "emergency scam" is victimizing more-and-more people by means of compromised e-mail accounts. Police stated that scammers are sending e-mails to the addresses in the contact list of compromised accounts to hunt for possible victims.

In the e-mails, the scammers, pretending to be one of the family member or a family member's friend, state that they immediately need money because some urgent situation has arisen. The situation referred to is commonly imprisonment or hospitalization during the sender's absence from home.

Significantly, while these requests are e-mailed to the contact addresses of the hijacked account, the owner of that account doesn't get to know anything. Said Iain McEwan, OPP Const. in Peterborough County (Ontario, Canada), the scam's success depends on people becoming emotional and taking hasty decisions.

Read more...

Odometer Fraud - Rollback Rip-off!

That shiny, beautiful, freshly detailed, never been in a wreck, gotta buy it today, low mileage, late model, previously owned car or truck may be your worst nightmare. The extra money you took out of savings to buy this vehicle may have just been ripped off by a thief. You may have just become a victim of odometer fraud.

Federal and state laws are in place to protect you from this crime. It is a felony for anyone to knowingly tamper with, adjust, alter, set back, disconnect, or fail to connect an odometer of a motor vehicle, so as to reflect a lower mileage than the motor vehicle has actually been driven, or to supply any written odometer statement knowing such statement to be false or based on mileage figures reflected by an odometer that has been tampered with or altered.

When the above law is violated, title fraud and grand theft, both felonies, are also added to the list of arrest charges against the violator. The three felonies each carry a fine as much as $5,000.00 and/or five years in a state prison or both such fine or imprisonment.

Source:

• "Buyer Beware-Mileage Ripoff", Florida Highway Patrol
  

Resources:

• "Office of Odometer Fraud Investigation", National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
• "Uncovering Odometer Fraud", Carfax.
• "Odometer Tampering and Fraud", website.
• "Federal Odometer tampering Statutes", US Department of Justice.
  

Read more...

Wardriving: Australian Police to combat WiFi Fraud

The Queensland (Australia) Police fraud squad says it will be the first police force in the world to go on "wardriving" missions to warn homes and businesses if their wireless networks are not secure.

Detective Superintendent Brian Hay said criminals were piggy-backing on the WiFi connections of ordinary computer users and using them to anonymously commit crimes such as fraud and identity theft.

The process of searching for open wireless networks using a laptop or handheld in a moving vehicle is known in the geek community as "wardriving".

Many home networks can be accessed by anyone within range because strong security settings are often not enabled and passwords are rarely changed from the default setting.

It is important for police to get "ahead of the game" as crooks were now sharing information on satellite maps showing vulnerable areas with large numbers of unsecured networks.

• "The great WiFi robbery: police to patrol down your street", Sydney Morning Herald, 7/21/09.
• Queensland Police Service website.

Read more...

Beware Of Fraud During Recovery Efforts

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Residents recovering from severe weather in Missouri are urged to be careful of fraud and other scams during recovery efforts.

"The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will never ask you for bank account information or your Social Security number unless you initiate the call," said Federal Coordinating Officer Tom Hall. FEMA and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) are particularly concerned about people pretending to be employed by FEMA, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) or other agencies.

To protect against disaster-related fraud, see "Beware of Fraud During Recovery Efforts," FEMA, 7/15/09.

Read more...

US Social Security System Open to Identity Theft and Fraud

The nation’s Social Security numbering scheme has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual’s date and location of birth.

The findings, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are further evidence that privacy safeguards created in the era before powerful computers and ubiquitous networks are increasingly failing, setting up an architecture of vulnerability around personal digital information.

To read the full New York Times article, please click here.

Read more...