Secret Service Busts Four Fraudsters With Ties To T.J. Maxx Attack
A recent Government Accountability Office report noted the difficulty of linking data theft to identity theft, but the U.S. Secret Service is having no such problems. The agency earlier this week said it has arrested and indicted four members of an organized fraud ring in South Florida, charging each of them with aggravated identity theft, counterfeit credit-card trafficking, and conspiracy. And the Secret Service has been able to trace the origin of the data used to perpetrate this identity theft and fraud back to the theft of millions of customer records from T.J. Maxx parent company TJX and from Polo Ralph Lauren.
The South Florida bust resulted in the recovery of about 200,000 stolen credit card account numbers used in fraud losses roughly calculated to be more than $75 million. Agents also seized two pickup trucks, $10,000 cash, and one handgun in connection with the case.
