What’s a dry cleaner story doing in PHIprivacy.net, you wonder? Well, look where they obtained the personal information. From a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida:
… Frantz Auguste, 53, of Sunny Isles, pled guilty yesterday to one count of access device fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft in connection with an identity theft tax refund fraud scheme. Sentencing has been scheduled for February 22, 2013 at 2:30 pm before U.S. District Judge Donald L. Graham.
According to documents filed in Court, law enforcement searched Auguste’s dry cleaning business in North Miami Beach on October 4, 2012, and found the following in a locked room for which Auguste had the only key:
- Handwritten notes and lists with the personal identification information, including names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers, of more than 100 individuals. Several of these lists appeared to have originated from a local nursing home and rehabilitation center.
- Multiple tax refund checks in different individuals’ names.
- Multiple tax returns in different individuals’ names.
Yes, another tax refund fraud scheme out of Florida that involved patient data. Which nursing home and rehabilitation center? They don’t tell us. Was an insider at the nursing home and rehabilitation center responsible for stolen data? They don’t tell us. And neither do the court records, because I looked.