latimes.com
Adrian Flores was working the identity theft beat as a police detective in Los Angeles County when he realized that he too had become a victim.
First, he answered a phone call about an outstanding bill for furniture store purchases that he hadn't made. Then he received several letters from the Internal Revenue Service, including one demanding $40,000 in back taxes on income he hadn't earned. When he ran his credit, the report showed he owed money at a hospital where he had never been treated.
Flores later learned that at least one of the culprits was an illegal immigrant working in Utah for Swift & Co. meat processing that had been one of the targets of a massive raid by federal immigration agents, who arrested 1,274 people in six states in December 2006.
"It rocks your world," he said. "It's like a little ball of string. It gets thicker and thicker and thicker as it goes along."
Posted by tyne at July 9, 2007