Bamidele Muraina, a Nigerian national who hacked into tax preparation firms and filed fraudulent unemployment benefit claims and tax returns using stolen personally identifiable information, and Gabriel Kalembo, a previously convicted fraudster who laundered the fraudulent assets, have both been sentenced to federal prison. The sentencing was announced today by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for…
Category: ID Theft
Follow-up: Woman Who Stole and Sold Protected Health Information Sentenced to 2 ½ Years in Prison
There was a follow-up last week to a case DataBreaches.net has reported on several times, beginning in December, 2020 when Demetrius Cervantes, 46, of McKinney, and Amanda Lowry, 40, of Sherman, Texas pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obtain protected health information from a protected computer. A third conspirator, Lydia Henslee, faced additional charges and subsequently…
Hospital worker stole identities of dying California patients in COVID scam, feds say
Helen Wegner reports: A hospital employee is accused of sharing patient identities with scammers who then fraudulently tried to obtain their COVID-19 unemployment benefits, according to court documents unsealed this week. Matthew Lombardo worked at the Scripps Health hospital in San Diego as a patient service representative where he obtained and verified patient information, including…
UPMC Settles 2014 Data Breach Litigation for $2.65 Million
HIPAA Journal reports that the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has agreed to a $2.65 million settlement to resolve a data breach lawsuit filed by employees affected by a February 2014 data breach that resulted in many employees becoming victims of tax refund fraud. Read about the terms of the settlement on HIPAA Journal.
Romanian 19-year-old charged with thousands in local ATM withdrawal thefts
Jefferson Robbins reports: A California man suspected of using bogus credit cards to steal about $16,000 from Wenatchee Valley ATMs is now in custody. Fabio Ciuciu, 19, has been identified as the person in a photograph taken from a Cashmere Valley bank cash machine in February 2019, when he allegedly sought to withdraw cash on…
Ten Long Island Residents Charged in Nationwide Identity Fraud Scheme
From the Law Firm Newswire: Thirteen people and three corporations were charged on a 108-count indictment in relation to a nationwide synthetic identity fraud scheme that netted over $1 million from financial institutions. Authorities believe the defendants also amassed a credit limit of hundreds of millions of dollars across the United States. The scam’s alleged…