Using apartments in the San Fernando Valley and the Glendale area, identity thieves have been quietly preying on their target species – foreign scholars leaving the US in the American information age, according to a cybercrime expert.
Criminals wake up these silent identities and file hundreds of applications for bank accounts and credit cards, said David Maiyon, a professor of fraud at Georgia State University. Fraudsters in Southern California can take out lines of credit while knowing the victims live around the world, he said.
Sgt. Frank Diana, with the La County Sheriff’s Defracf and Cyber Crimes Bureau, said that the most believed organized crime has the skills to steal, hide their IP addresses and use their money to make it difficult to find.
Local crime rings “make millions of dollars, they live in nice houses, they all use the taxpayers,” Diana said. “It’s not their money, but they live like kings.”
Maimon and his partner Karl Lubenow say they killed this scheme to steal foreign IDs through their work at Swililink, a company that works with financial institutions to ensure unity and detect fraud.
At first they were asked to check applications where foreign movie stars and athletes were included.
In the process, he said, their investigation found something bigger: Hundreds of applications submitted to Master Credit Affers from a set of California street addresses and IP addresses in September.
When they sowed the files, they saw that, in addition to looking closely at foreign celebrities, the fraudsters were pretending to be graduates of foreign students who came to the US in 1977 and remained as 2024.
These scholars were required to obtain social security numbers to work on campus in roles such as research or teaching assistants, postdoctoral fellows or visiting professors. They no longer live in the US, but their private information is shared with school information and credit bureaus, making Maimoni prime prey for hackers and fraudsters.
Should the academics who were harassed want to return to the US, they were faced with a large amount of debt and a credit score that could prevent them from finding a job or housing, said Maiyon. At the moment, financial institutions are in debt, which can come close to increasing the cost of their services to all customers, he added.
Most of the applications Maimon identified as fraudulent were established in six counties with addresses in Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Toluca Lake, Glendale and Thailand. It’s possible that members of the crime rings are using addresses they can find so they can take credit cards, checks and other sensitive documents sent through the mail, Maiyon said.
The nexus of these addresses falls in the Burbank and Glendale area, which maimon identifies as the home of the Armenian, organized crime group known as Easiciate Featurim.
He also noted that scholars from Turkey, Armenia’s historical rival, accounted for almost half of all fraudulent applications. The rest were scholars in various countries such as Japan, India, the Netherlands, Portugal and Greece.
“See [Armenian Power] They have been involved in identity theft and white-on-white crime for the past 15 years, “said Maiyon.” It leads us to believe that these people are stealing all these bank accounts and lines of credit. ”
Sgt. Diana said the tactics used by the identity ring that Maimon is suspected of finding are similar to those often used by Armenian criminal gangs, which are often based in the Burbank and Glendale areas.
Although Diana did not know that the Armenian groups behind the fraud are closely watching foreign scholars, she said that these groups are responsible for a significant part of organized financial crime in La County.
“We are running into major Armenian crime groups that specialize in identity theft,” he said. “That’s what they do for a living too [they] make a lot of money. “
The Sheriff’s Department is not currently investigating identity theft cases involving foreign scholars, he said. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department said the department does not currently have an investigation related to this article. The Burbank Police Department declined to comment.
Maimon did not report his findings to authorities, out of fear of retaliation from the criminals involved, he said. His earlier efforts to shine a light on fraudsters led to his social security number and personal information being leaked on the dark Web, leading to years of identity theft, he said.
He reported findings to affected financial institutions in his role as a fraud investigator.
One of the financial institutions, which did not want to be named due to security concerns, said in a statement that it initially realized there was something more after seeing a series of high-profile showings of LA and Kern Counties dollars coming from accounts in the Glendale area. Most account holders only have addresses that go back to 2023 and a limited credit history.
The agency said it continued to receive fraudulent applications using the identities of former scholars. When a use is flagged, the agency asks for additional verification information, which is rarely available.
Major Dacks hacks exposed millions of Americans’ personal information, which is now readily available for purchase on the dark Web, Diana said.
In 2024, the Federal Trade Commission received 1.1 million complaints of theft and 2.6 million complaints of related fraud resulting in financial losses of $ 12.7 billion, according to a consumer report to report the company.
Maimon said artificial intelligence has increased the ease with which criminals can carry out crimes.
Once fraudsters have obtained the victim’s name, date of birth and social security number, they can use AI tools to generate a license or passport photo. They can even have an AI-looking video of a person holding a photo ID and changing their profile, which is an added security feature in some institutions.
Both the id and the fake person in this video are an example of how AI can be used to try to circumvent security measures in financial institutions.
Identity fraud cases are also very painful to prosecute as criminals hide behind a web of shadowy IP addresses. In addition, there is usually a long delay between when the fraud is committed and when the victim finds out – usually by receiving a letter from the collection agency later, where it is said that the evidence trail.
“We’re usually up late and short,” said Diana.
In the case of stolen foreign IDs, victims may even find themselves more protected from California attackers.
Diana warns all angels to stay alert for signs of identity theft by regularly checking their credit scores.
He recommends people lock their credit at the three leading credit bureaus, the state, equifax and trununion. That way, if someone tries to open a fraudulent line of credit, the financial institution won’t be able to access their credit report and will probably deny the program.
Finally, if someone is a victim of identity theft, they should report it to the credit bureau, the FTC and local law enforcement, she said.
