ID Theft Ring Included City Employees

"In a six-count indictment filed in U.S. District Court, federal prosecutors assert a Seattle Municipal Court employee passed account information into an identity theft ring in which four people are presently charged.

"Federal prosecutors claim Diamond Wendell Alexander Jr. and Crystal Loren Lee recruited others to copy credit card information from their places of employment and forward that information to them.

"Alexander and Lee would then use that credit card information to make purchases, chiefly Wal-Mart gift cards, according to prosecutors statements to the court. In total, they attempted to fraudulently charge more than $300,000 in gift cards and other merchandise using `skimmed` credit cards.

"Among those recruited for the scheme was a Seattle Municipal Court employee who handled payments, prosecutors allege. That employee would then pass on credit card numbers -- referred to by prosecutors as `access device information` -- to Alexander and Lee.

"Identified only by initials in court documents, the city employee is considered an unindicted co-conspirator in the scheme.

"`The Seattle Municipal Court employee would print access device information pertaining to people who used their cards to pay for traffic tickets and other transactions with the court,` according to a grand jury indictment filed Wednesday."

More at seattlepi.com...

70% Of Banks Hacked From The Inside

"A former Wachovia Bank executive who had handled insider fraud incidents says banks are in denial about just how massive the insider threat problem is within their institutions. Meanwhile, the economic crisis appears to be exacerbating the risk, with 70 percent of financial institutions saying they have experienced a case of data theft by one of their employees in the past 12 months, according to new survey data.

"Shirley Inscoe, who spent 21 years at Wachovia handling insider fraud investigations and fraud prevention, says banks don't want to talk about the insider fraud, and many aren't aware that it's an `epic problem.`

"`There needs to be more training around this issue,` says Inscoe, who co-authored a book about bank insider fraud called Insidious -- How Trusted Employees Steal Millions and Why It's So Hard for Banks to Stop Them, which publishes later this month. `We are seeing a huge increase in this country of organized crime rings threatening individuals who work in financial institutions and making them [commit fraud on their behalf],` she says."

More at dark reading...

Bad News For Proxy Users

"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Proxy servers are an everyday part of Internet surfing. But using one in a crime could soon lead to more time in the clink.

"A key vote Wednesday on new federal sentencing guidelines would classify the use of proxies as evidence of `sophistication,` increasing sentences by about 25 percent _ which could mean years or even decades longer behind bars, depending on the crime. It's akin to judges handing down stiffer sentences when a gun is used in a robbery.

"Yet digital-rights advocates are worried. Although they aren't absolving criminals, they complain that the proposal is so broad, it could lead to unnecessarily harsh sentences for tech neophytes who didn't know they were using proxies in the first place or who were simply engaging in a practice often encouraged as a safer way of using the Internet..."

More at KTAR.com...

Even "The Good Guys" are Crooks, Part II

Former police officer gets 10 years in theft from evidence locker

"Former Alton police officer Mick Dooley was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for a case in which he was accused of stealing thousands in cash from the department's evidence locker.

"Federal judge G. Patrick Murphy minced no words in the ruling, saying he was particularly disturbed by Dooley's attempts to blame his fellow officers for the crimes he committed."

More plus earlier report on TheTelegraph.com...