The real Ahad Sabet apparently didn’t know that his
missing passport
had made its way into the hands of terrorists until early 2002, when FBI agents contacted him in connection with the case against Moussaoui.
Moussaoui claimed the government had no case against him since its own evidence showed that Sabet and Ramzi bin al-Shibh—an alleged conspirator in the 9/11 attacks—were not the same person. But this argument raised questions about Moussaoui’s
understanding of criminal procedure
(if not about his intelligence, generally). From the beginning, the government’s claim had been that bin al-Shibh used Sabet as an alias to wire money to Moussaoui. An alias gathered through ID theft would fit the terrorists’ needs nicely.
When investigators searched Moussaoui’s possessions after the 9/11 attacks, they found a notebook listing bin al-Shibh’s German phone number and the name “Ahad Sabet,” according to the indictment. Crucial to the government’s case was an explanation of how bin al-Shibh was able to obtain Sabet’s identification papers while Sabet was living and working as a physician in the U.S.
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Sabet’s mother provided that answer: Her son’s passport had been
stolen years earlier during a rock-climbing vacation
to Spain.
This explanation meshed with other information that government officials had about the 9/11 hijackers.
Terrorist ringleader Mohammed Atta and bin al-Shibh (who remained at large two years after the attacks) had a history of meeting in Spain. Investigators in that country said both men flew to Spain in July 2001, on separate flights, apparently to review their plans for the 9/11 attacks.
According to Ahad Sabet’s family, during his vacation to Spain, two or three young men approached his rented car as he sought directions—and then grabbed his backpack from the back seat and ran. Sabat’s U.S.
passport was inside the backpack.
Ahad Sabet’s parents had come to the United States
from Iran in the 1960s, according to family sources,
and settled in the St. Louis area. Ahad Sabet was
born there in 1972. His age and appearance was a
perfect fit for a Yemeni terrorist looking for an American identity to steal.
Other al-Qaida operatives detained by the U.S. government after the 9/11 attacks had extensive ties to American ID theft crews: •
Redouane Dahmani, a suspected al-Qaida associate of Algerian birth, purchased a new identity—including an
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SSN—soon after he arrived in the U.S.
He then filed a
false asylum application
under his own identity, using the INS
documents that resulted in a “legitimate”
SSN. Dahmani, who was living in the Phoenix area, was arrested in 2002 and charged by federal prosecutors with conspiracy regarding his asylum request.
Local state prosecutors also charged him with forgery, perjury and identity theft.
The local prosecutors accused him of attempting to acquire an Arizona driver’s license using the name Abdel Halim Lalami and a French passport that was forged or contained false information.
•
Sofiane Laimeche, another suspected al-Qaida associate, was smuggled into the United States on an Algerian ship through the port of Philadelphia, and—within five days—had made his way to Phoenix and purchased a new identity, including a SSN. He used the fake name, SSN and Immigration and Naturalization Service alien registration number when he filled out federal and state paperwork for a job in 1997. After his illegal entrance to the United States and false ID claims, Laimeche obtained a valid work visa.
Laimeche was eventually charged with five counts of Social Security fraud and two counts of making false statements to the government.
In June 2002 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, James G. Huse—Inspector General of
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the Social Security Administration—described the
ID
theft tools
used by the al-Qaida terrorists: We may never know with absolute certainty how many of the 19 hijackers of September 11th used improperly obtained SSNs, or how they obtained them. Following the September 11th attacks, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) immediately received from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) the names and other personal identifiers (as they then knew them) of the 19 terrorist hijackers who died in these attacks. Those names and identifiers were matched against SSA’s indices. We associated SSNs with 12 of the 19
names. Of the SSNs associated with these 12
names, five appeared to be counterfeit (SSNs that were never issued by SSA). In addition, one was associated with a child, leaving six names associated with SSNs that were issued by SSA. Further, four of these six names were associated with multiple SSNs.
Unfortunately, until 9/11, SSA had limited success encouraging the INS to move quickly on either of these planned initiatives, as the projects did not appear to be as high a priority to INS as they were to SSA.
Huse has blamed the cracks in SSN security on bureaucratic turf battles between the certain parts of the SSA and the INS.
D R U G S
In July 2002, a two-month investigation that zeroed in on two suspected methamphetamine labs in the Livermore, California, area led to the arrest of at least six people on
drug and ID theft charges
.
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Detectives had been told by informants that a man
was producing methamphetamine at a ranch on the
eastern outskirts of Livermore—a fairly remote section of the county. The same informants also mentioned a rival operation at a second ranch not far
from the first. The detectives watched the properties for several weeks.
Once they’d established a reasonable case, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office investigators
raided both
ranches
on the same day. Armed with search warrants, the detectives seized guns, methamphetamine and some familiar evidence of ID theft: driver’s licenses, credit cards and other personal documents belonging to residents of some of the county’s wealthier neighborhoods.
The second ranch had more ID theft evidence. In a trailer parked on that property, investigators found a cache of fake California driver’s licenses and fraudulently obtained credit cards and hundreds of personal checks and Social Security cards. They also discovered receipts logging more than $14,400 in credit card purchases from several area home improvement stores. Apparently, the thief was reselling the home improvement supplies below retail prices and trading them for drugs.
The Sheriff’s prime suspect for the ID thefts was a 30-year-old woman named Paige Kay Wolfenberger.
She was arrested on nine felony counts of identity theft, possession of a forged driver’s license and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm. (She was on probation from a 1999 drug conviction.) They
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arrested several other people on charges related to the drug labs.
Several months later, in September, Wolfenberger pleaded no contest to two felony counts of identity theft. She accepted a
16-month prison term
as part of a deal that dismissed the seven other felony counts.
ID theft has long been associated with illegal drug use. But, starting in the early 2000s, police and prosecutors around the U.S. started noticing a refinement in the criminal use of ID theft. Criminals would steal someone’s identity for the sole purpose of giving police false information upon arrest—and minimiz-ing or avoiding subsequent prosecution.
The trend was illustrated in a case that involved more than a dozen police officers scouring a downtown Las Vegas neighborhood in October 2002, in search of a woman using the name Tiffany May.
The woman, a
prostitute
who’d been working Las Vegas’s seedier neighborhoods for years, was suspected of taking a baby girl without the permission of the baby’s mother. The facts turned out to be complicated. The baby’s mother had left the baby with her grandmother. The grandmother—an acquaintance of the woman claiming to be Tiffany May—had left the baby with “Tiffany May.” Later, the baby’s mother became upset when she couldn’t find either her baby or the woman claiming to be Tiffany May.
Las Vegas police circulated a missing child flier with a mug shot and physical description of the prostitute; above the mug shot was the name
Tiffany May
. The police recovered the child fairly quickly—the woman
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claiming to be Tiffany May had
left the baby girl
in the care of an elderly couple who had no idea who the child’s mother really was.
The woman claiming to be Tiffany May wasn’t; and the police suspected as much. The real Tiffany May turned out to be a much different person—a law abiding citizen who lived in a quiet Las Vegas neighborhood with her mother. She wasn’t pleased to learn that a hooker and possible kidnapper had been using her name.
The real Tiffany May had lost her Social Security card
and a Clark County Health District photo ID card
about 18 months earlier.
Las Vegas police were familiar with the fake Tiffany May from years of regular prostitution arrests; they just weren’t sure about her real name (though they had several aliases). She’d been using the name
Tiffany
May
for more than a year.
In a less convoluted case, police and court officers in Sandoval County, New Mexico, thought they had their man when they arrested and convicted him for a DWI…twice. And they thought their man was named Bryce Roland.
In October 1996, a Sandoval County sheriff’s deputy stopped and charged a man with drunken driving and not having a driver’s license. The man told the deputy his name was Bryce Roland and offered a birth date and SSN that checked out. The man posted
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bond, made all his court appearances and pleaded guilty to the charges. He was sentenced to and served two days in jail.
In November 1999, the District Attorney’s Office received a call from Bryce Roland near Milwaukee asking that the DWI conviction be set aside—because he was not the man pulled over in Sandoval County.
The DWI conviction was taken off Roland’s record.
Then, in February 2000, local police stopped a man on suspicion of DWI who gave his name as Bryce Roland and had the correct birth date and Social Security number. The man pleaded guilty to a first offense DWI in municipal court, made his appearances, spent one night in jail, paid his fines and completed the MADD Victim’s Impact Panel.
Less than a year later, the real Bryce Roland called the District Attorney’s Office again and told the staff lawyers that his license was being revoked for a
DWI he
did not commit
. He asked that the second DWI conviction also be stricken from his record. Then, he called the Wisconsin Social Security Administration about any further fraud.
Roland told Wisconsin investigators that he had only been to New Mexico once, passing through on his way to California. But his Social Security card and birth certificate had been stolen in Milwaukee in 1994.
And the real Bryce Roland knew that someone had obtained credit in New Mexico using his Social Security number.
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Social Security investigators discovered that, in 1998, someone in New Mexico had been issued a duplicate Social Security card using Roland’s number.
Within a few months of the second phone call from the real Bryce Roland, Arizona officials announced the indictment of Edward J. Wolsiffer, indicted on 17 counts of forgery and one count each of fraud, theft of identity and
concealing identity
. He was also indicted on two DWI charges that he was previously convicted of under the stolen name.
When Wisconsin investigators ran Roland’s name through the Social Security and criminal databases, Wolsiffer’s name also came up.
Sandoval County records showed that a Wolsiffer had been arrested on a traffic stop in 1998 and was due to be extradited to Indiana as a habitual traffic offender. Wolsiffer did not give police Roland’s ID information that time, as he had in 1996 and would again in 2000.
C O N C L U S I O N
Identity theft is often an enabling crime—one that occurs in conjunction with other crimes. When it comes to these
other crimes
, illegal immigration, terrorism and drug use (or distribution) are the most common. From a law enforcement and public policy perspective, these other crimes can result in some good. They can draw more attention—and more financial resources—to the fight against ID theft.
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6
AGENCIES THAT
PROTECT YOU…OR
DON’T
In October 1998, Congress passed the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 (
Identity
Theft Act
) to address the problem of identity theft.
Specifically, the Act amended federal law to make it a federal crime when anyone: …knowingly transfers or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable state or local law.
The Identity Theft Act
accomplished four things
: 1)