Identity Thief Sentenced

A New York Court sentenced 32 year old Nigerian Lanre Elekede to 34 months in prison for his role in an identity-theft scheme. Elekede was convicted of stealing personal identity information, passing that information on to other members of his identity-theft ring and then committing fraud using that information.

Elekede and his partners stole the identities of at least 175 individuals and defrauded many financial institutions using those identities. The group exchanged credit card numbers complete with the expiration dates, the 3 digit security codes and expiration dates. Additionally, they passed out victims’ names, phone numbers, addresses, SS numbers and even mothers’ maiden names.

When he as arrested in 2004, police found notebooks that contained names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, credit card numbers, bank account numbers and other stolen personal data.

The gang used much of the stolen information to setup online gambling accounts on a Costa-Rican gambling web site betonsports.com. Betonsports PLC is also in trouble in Missouri.

See the press release on the FBI’s web site.

I am not sure how much trouble this caused for the victims, but 34 months seems like a short time to serve, especially since he will probably not serve that entire time. It can take an identity theft victim a whole lot longer than that to get their life back in order :(.