United States of America v Emmanuel Abiodun, Atairu Akuetiemehe Akinyemi S7 04 Cr. 1316 (DC)
Defendants were part of a loosely connected group of some thirty individuals who engaged in a scheme to commit credit card and access device fraud through the use of stolen credit information over some years. They obtained credit reports for randomly selected individuals – the names were usually taken from publicly available telephone directories.
Apparently, the credit reports supplier was from Philip Cummings, who had been worked as a help-desk employee at Teledata Communication Inc.(TCI). He stole credit reports on some 33,000 consumers around the country and downloaded thousands of confidential consumer credit histories which bearing consumers’ names, social security numbers, dates of birth, and selling them to defendant and others. After he left the company, he further used the TCI software to log on some private database and downloaded and print-out reports without authorization.
The reports were sold for $ 60 each and the defendants were buying those credit reports, which enabled them to commit various forms of identity theft and fraud by impersonate victims and obtain fraudulent loans, access bank accounts and run up unauthorized credit card bills in their name. The government contends that the group participated in a massive identity theft ring that was responsible for the theft or credit information accounted for $ 50 to $ 100 million or more in losses. All of them pled guilty to conspiracy, identity theft, fraud and possession of illegal access devices. The judge held them liable on the loss amount based on the quantity of their purchased reports.
R v Crossdale [2006] EWCA Crim 2541
R v Crossdale [2006] EWCA Crim 2541
In this case , the appellant , a Jamaican , entered the United Kingdom in 1999 . He was refused entry but granted temporary admission to attend the following day for deportation . He absconded and remained in the United Kingdom . While in the United Kingdom , he successfully hijacked the identity of a man living in Hertfordshire . In August 2000 , he applied for a British passport in that persons name but was refused . In February 2002 , he married using the false name and in March 2003 he applied for benefits using that false name again . Between March 2003 and April 2005 , he dishonestly obtained benefits of up to 11,800 pounds . The appellant also continued to state his false identity to registrars to register his new born child at that time .
By January 2006 , he had stopped obtaining benefits as he was employed and by March 2006 he was arrested and during interview he tried to escape by feigning heart attack and escape while he was in the hospital. He was apprehended and re-interviewed . Initially he had denied his crimes but eventually confessed to everything and admitted his guilt and true identity . The victim who was hijacked suffered ongoing difficulties as a result of the appellants conduct such as hi credit rating being damaged and child support agency contacting him regarding the false identity given to them by the appellant .
In the judgement given , the learned judges considered the element of identity hijacking a gravely aggravating feature , as the person whose name was taken away and used fraudulently suffered personal difficulties both in his credit ratings and being pursued by the Child Support Agency , and this shows that identity theft is of great public concern .
The learned judges upon reconsidering the facts of the case did not however allow the appeal as there was no error in judgement by the previous judges and even if there was any error in sentencing , the sentence was on the light side . It is observed also that since there is no merit in the appeal therefore the appeal must fail .
R v Mahoney [2011] B.C.J. No. 206
In this case , the accused was sentenced for using a false driver's license . The accused used a stolen driver's license as an identification document and forged the signature on stolen prepaid cards . When the accused was arrested , the police found corporate cheques and stolen identification documents in the accused purse .
In the judgement given , it is stated that offences in the nature of fraud and identity theft are matters of great concern to the community since offences of identity theft may cause heavy economical loss to individual or businesses . In this case alone , at least three stolen identities were involved . It was also observed that since she had spent some time and effort in obtaining stolen documents , for example she used a stolen identity to open a bank account fraudulently , shows that there could be no innocent purpose for creating such and account as it is clearly a kind of theft . It was also argued by the counsels that this type of fraud was an unsophisticated attempt at fraud , but still she had the intention of committing the crime .
Kathy Reilly & Ors v Ceridian Corporation 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 24561
Plaintiffs, employees of a payroll customer, sued defendant, a payroll services company, for the harm plaintiffs allegedly suffered as a result of the hacking of defendant’s database and the theft of plaintiff’s information.
In this case, Ceridian is a payroll processing firm, process its commercial business customers’ payrolls, and collects information about its customers’ employees. The information include names, addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, and bank account information. Reilly and Ors were employees of a law firm, a Ceridian customer. Few years later in 2009, Ceridian suffered a security breach whereby an unknown hacker infiltrated Ceridian’s Powerpay system and potentially gained access to personal and financial information belonging to appellants as well as the rest 27,000 employees at 1,900 companies. It is unknowingly whether the hacker read, copied, or understood the data. When Ceridian determined the potential hacked information after working with professional investigations, on January 2010 they sent letters to the potential identity theft victims, informing them of the breach. The appellants alleged that they have an increased risk of identity theft.
The U.S. District Court of New Jersey dismiss plaintiffs’ claim and the court of appeal affirm the decision, held that appellants’ allegations of an increased risk of identity theft as a result of the security breach are hypothetical, future injuries, and therefore do not reach the merits of the substantive issue. It was held that allegations of possible future injury are not sufficient, it must be actual or imminent and concrete in both a qualitative and temporal sense, not merely ‘abstract’.
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