Michaelangelo Conte reports:
Two New York men who were once based in Bayonne have been charged with running a massive identity theft ring using dozens of people in numerous states to buy high-end items and withdraw cash using stolen account information, officials said.
Abraham Lajos Berger, 56, and Alexei Kulakov, 38, of Brooklyn, were arrested Wednesday and charged with multiple counts of identity theft, theft by deception, producing fictitious identification and conspiracy, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said yesterday.
[…]
It’s believed the account information was obtained online from overseas brokers in stolen account information, DeFazio said.
[…]
The investigation began earlier this year while Berger was still in federal prison serving a time for fraud related to his involvement in the “Greenpoint Crew,” an Eastern European criminal organization, DeFazio said. The crew was made up of immigrants from former Soviet Bloc countries such as Poland, Ukraine, Georgia and Hungary.
Read more on NJ.com.
Related: For more on the “Greenpoint Crew:”