Identity Fraud

Police have arrested a Texas man suspected in identity thefts involving more than 160 UC Irvine graduate and medical students, authorities said. Michael Tyrone Thomas, 27, of Fort Worth, was an employee in the Student Resources Department of United Healthcare in Dallas, authorities said. The company manages the university's graduate student health insurance program. The 163 identity theft reports involved students in the 2006-07 school year, said UCI Police Chief Paul Henisey.

Federal authorities said Tuesday that they had cracked the largest case of identity theft in U.S. history, charging 11 people in the theft of more than 40 million credit and debit card account numbers from computer systems at such major retailers as TJ Maxx and Barnes & Noble.

Federal authorities this week announced a series of arrests and convictions in connection with a global identity theft ring that stole millions of dollars by hijacking home-equity lines of credit issued to thousands of consumers. On Monday, state and federal law enforcement officials arrested four men who were part of a group that allegedly combined high-tech equipment with old-fashioned con artistry to drain home-equity lines.

More than 1,000 patients at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center had their personal information taken by a former employee in the hospital's billing department, according to hospital officials who said prosecutors allege that the man used the identities to steal from insurance companies. The hospital's chief financial officer warned affected patients in a letter sent last week that their information had been found during a search of the former employee's home.

Four suspects in an identity-theft ring that stole nearly $250,000 in designer merchandise using credit card numbers were arrested Thursday, authorities said. The ring used the stolen identifies to get credit accounts and then bought expensive items, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Marc Labreche. The items were then returned for cash, he said. Those arrested included Johnny Tran, 26, and Lucy Tran, 23, both of Westminster, Hung Anh Dong, 25, of Midway City, and a 17-year-old boy.

Consumers reported more than 670,000 cases of fraud and identity theft in 2006 that cost them $1.2 billion, the Federal Trade Commission said. For the seventh straight year, ID theft was the most common complaint, accounting for 36%, or 246,035, of the cases.

You didn't get just low prices at T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, you also had a good chance of getting your credit card information and other personal data stolen. You can hardly live without credit and debit cards these days, but there are steps that can be taken to ward off the perils of identity theft, privacy experts say, even if caused by a giant information leak from some remote, windowless computer center. The stakes are high.

In the weeks after three laptops went missing from a Los Angeles County Child Support Services office, officials sent letters to 243,000 clients in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, warning that their personal information -- including Social Security numbers -- might be at risk. The computers were stored at the secured Child Support Services Department headquarters in the City of Commerce but went missing sometime during the weekend of Feb. 24, officials said.

Four people remained in custody Thursday after Brea police found mail addressed to nearly 600 people in what investigators said was an identity-theft ring. A Yorba Linda resident called Brea police shortly after 2 a.m. Saturday to report a white Ford Explorer driving slowly down Las Patranas and stopping at every home, authorities said Thursday.

A waitress who worked at a Hamburger Hamlet restaurant last year has been accused of picking up more than tips from her customers. The former waitress also made off with the credit or debit card numbers of at least half a dozen patrons -- and possibly as many as 40, the Los Angeles city attorney's office said Monday. Already, about $16,300 in unauthorized charges have been linked to the scam.