Identity theft fueled by meth

By: WILLIAM FINN BENNETT - Staff Writer | Friday, August 17, 2007 7:06 AM PDT ∞

If you live in San Diego County and have been a victim of identity theft, police say there's a good chance that methamphetamine fueled the crime.

The county's lead narcotics prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Damon Mosler, estimates that three quarters of identity theft crimes are committed by meth users trying to feed their drug habit.

"I can't think of one (identity theft case) I have worked that hasn't been meth-related," Dan Pearce, a detective for the San Diego County Sheriff's Department's computer crime unit, said in a recent interview.

Pearce and Mosler say a number of factors underlie meth addicts' increasing use of identity theft to pay for their drug habits. The potential profits of identity theft are greater than those of other property crimes, such as robbery, Pearce said.

So-called paper crimes also carry lighter sentences.

"If you are caught for armed robbery, you're looking at a stiff prison sentence," Pearce said. "But if you cash a bad check, you make 10 times as much and you are (often) looking at probation."

Mosler said another attraction is that identity theft victims often aren't aware that they have been robbed until long after thieves have used their identities for hundreds of transactions.

"Most victims only find out when law enforcement calls or they go to refinance their house or buy a car," Mosler said.

Pearce said the word is out among methamphetamine addicts that identity theft is the way to go for high profits and low risk, and they regularly share information on the most efficient ways of perpetrating such crimes.

"I call it the 'tweaker information network,' " he said, without a smile.

Meth addicts use myriad techniques for stealing identities, Mosler said.

The rise of the Internet and increasingly sophisticated software have made it easier for meth addicts and others to research people's identities online, order credit cards, open bank accounts and print perfect reproductions of checks, he said.

One common identity-theft scheme involves stealing outgoing bills from residential mailboxes, lifting the account numbers from checks and using computer software to create sets of fake checks.

The new checks often display the names of people whose licenses or I.D. cards have been stolen by the same thieves.

Identity theft is such an important source of income for meth addicts and dealers that some dealers will barter stolen identification for the drug, Mosler said.

Pearce said casinos are favorite places for addicts to pass bad checks or use stolen credit cards.

Computer-related identity theft is also popular because people can do it from anywhere, Mosler said ---- coffee shops, hotels, even the comfort of their own homes.

Thieves often piggyback onto unsecured wireless networks from neighbors' homes and apartments.

Pearce said he has seen case after case in which someone with an unsecured network ---- one not protected with a password ---- has a meth addict living next door, using his neighbor's network to sign up for credit cards or open bank accounts in other people's names.

He said that people should take the time to secure their wireless networks with passwords. That way, they will avoid a "kick in the door" by police.

Local and federal crime fighters say identity theft has become more of a problem in areas with high levels of meth abuse.

"The prevalence of such identity theft is rising in many areas where rates of methamphetamine distribution and abuse are high or increasing," according to a May report from the National Drug Intelligence Center. The Washington-based center is an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Nationwide, the incidence of identity theft has skyrocketed since 2000. In that year, there were 31,103 reported identity thefts in the country. In 2005, 255,565 such reports were filed, according to Federal Trade Commission data.

Rates were highest in states with high levels of meth dealing and abuse, according to the report.

The 2007 Methamphetamine Strike Force Report Card showed that between 2001 and 2005, county meth arrests grew by about 40 percent, from 6,372 in 2001 to 8,964 in 2005.

In 2006, however, there was a decrease to 7,370, the report states.

Pearce said that he was working patrol in Vista over a five-year period in the late 1990s and during that entire time, he saw one case of identity theft ---- a check fraud case.

"Now, I regularly go out and train patrol people on (identity theft) and they say they are inundated with (such crimes)," Pearce said, adding that he receives between 120 and 150 reports of identity theft each month.

A bill before Congress would result in an investigation into the possible link between identity theft crimes and methamphetamine. The Methamphetamine and Identity Theft Study Act of 2007 is working its way through the U.S. Senate.

If approved, it would require a statistical analysis of any correlation between the two types of crime and would review the possibility of imposing heavier sentences on those who commit both types of crime.

Contact staff writer William Finn Bennett at (760) 740-5426 or wbennett@nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.