A former UnitedHealthCare worker, who stole the personal and financial information of at least 1100 University of California, Irvine students has been arrested in Dallas, Texas.
Michael Tyrone Thomas, of Fort Worth, was arrested at his home and is being held on $300,000 bail. The authorities are alleging Thomas stole the information while working at UnitedHealthCare in December 2007. They are also charging that Thomas used the information to fill out fraudulent tax returns using 163 identities stolen in the caper.
According to the Houston Chronicle, a spokesman for UnitedHealthCare didn't return their call concerning the arrest on Friday. I went to the UnitedHealthCare site and found nothing mentioned about this case as of this writing.
It appears that the investigation was initiated by the UC Irvine Police after students started complaining about identity theft in March. Specifically, they complained about someone using their information to fill out bogus tax returns.
University computer experts took a look at their systems and found no signs of a breach. Subsequently, University Police investigating the case discovered all the students were enrolled in a insurance program administered by UnitedHealthCare.
A press release on the UC Irvine site gave credit to UCI Police Sergeants Tony Frisbee, Shaun Devlin, and Corporal Caroline Altamirano for working closely on the case with the Dallas District Attorney's Office. The release indicates that they expect additional arrests and that the IRS will be investigating the tax fraud implications in the case.
Recently, the National Taxpayer Advocate, issued a report to Congress indicating that tax fraud involving the use of stolen identities has grown 644 percent in the past four years. In a lot of these cases, forged W-2's are used to claim an earned income credit, which can net the fraudster thousands of dollars per return. In my post on this story, I mentioned that the IRS has a dedicated page to assist identity theft victims when their information has been used to commit tax fraud.
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