Web-savvy hotel worker breaks into accounts of rich & famous

Web-savvy hotel worker breaks into accounts of rich & famous
REUTERS

NEW YORK, MARCH 21: Police have accused a restaurant worker of breaching bank accounts and credit card reports of America’s rich and famous in a case reported to be the largest theft of identities in Internet history. High-school dropout Abraham Abdallah, 32, broke into accounts of 217 people listed in Forbes magazine, mainly by using the Internet and credit-reporting agencies, said New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on Tuesday.

The New York Post said those affected included Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, director Steven Spielberg, CNN founder Ted Turner, financiers George Soros and Warren Buffett, Disney CEO Michael Eisner, media mogul Oprah Winfrey and Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone.

“He used the Internet. He was very creative and very innovative. He was very persistent,” New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said. “We still have not figured out exactly what he stole.”

The Post, which first reported the story, said police suspect Abdallah stole millions of dollars in the biggest identity theft that has involved the Internet.Kerik said police arrested Abdallah, who worked as a restaurant waiter’s helper known as a busboy, on March 7 after investigating him since October. He was indicted in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn earlier this month on a string of fraud and impersonation charges.

When he was arrested, he had 800 fraudulent credit cards, Kerik said, adding that the suspect had 20,000 blank credit cards and had ordered a type of machine that could emboss them.

According to the indictment, police found photographs, social security numbers, dates of birth and addresses of more than two hundred chief executive officers and more than four hundred credit card numbers with matching addresses and personal information. Police say Abdallah found names of the country’s wealthiest people in Forbes and, using the telephone and computers in Brooklyn public libraries, contacted credit-reporting companies to obtain confidential information about their accounts.

He also allegedly impersonated his targets to make phone calls about transactions to banks and brokerages such as Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and Fidelity Investments, leaving call back numbers linked to virtual voice mail boxes in their home cities,The Post reported.

According to The Post, authorities alleged he used a cell phone to retrieve messages left in the voice mail boxes and faxes to rent mailboxes in his victims’ names, paying for them with stolen credit card numbers. Abdallah allegedly paid couriers to collect packages ordered in his victims’ names.

“He’s the best I ever faced,” Det. Michael Fabozzi of the NYPD’s Computer Investigation and Technology Unit was quoted as saying in The Post. His colleague, Det. Jahmal Daise, said: “You rarely run into someone this good.”Kerik said Abdallah had a record of 11 arrests in New York, mostly for property crimes, and 14 federal arrests, the details of which were unavailable.Abdallah’s Attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.