Best Person of the Week: FBI Special Agent Waldo J. Longa Busts Palm Beach Identity Theft Ring
Bringing down an identity theft ring is no easy thing. Law enforcement often has to go undercover for months at a time, get involved with the criminals — and actually do illegal transactions with money being swapped. This is a very risky proposition that FBI Special Agent Waldo J. Longa, and his team, had no problem with getting down and dirty to stop an identity theft ring in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Between June and July, the ring, comprised of seven low lifes, made 32 separate fake IDs using information stolen from people in Florida, California and other states and showed FBI agents a list of 110 real identities to choose from. Arrested in the sting were the following people: Verne Edward Bell, Michael Angelo Mercado, Ryan Patrick Sullivan, Gregory Charles Lenox, Ileana Martinez, Erlon Abraao Monteiro and Vernon Antonio Taylor.
In a series of meetings between June 14 and July 15, FBI agents paid Mercado and Bell a total of $27,750 for fake IDs. In one instance, Mercado told an FBI agent he worked with a hacker who stole people’s bank account passwords and personal identification numbers for cash machines, and added that he had personal information for 2,700 people that he could use to steal identities.
So, Special Agent Waldo J. Longa, we would like to extend our thanks and gratitude for all the good work you and your team do to stop identity theft. Congratulations, you are the “Best Person of the Week.”
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