FRAUD: Local thieves snag more funds than Web crooks, and mailboxes are top targets. By ANDREW WELLNER
Anchorage Daily News Published: April 18, 2007
Last Modified: April 20, 2007 at 03:15 AM
PALMER -- Since shortly after he took the job, Kelly Turney, the lone detective on the city police force, has been spending fully half of his time on one crime -- identity theft.
He's seen so many fake driver's licenses and forged checks that he once almost wished someone would commit a good old-fashioned violent crime that he could investigate. An investigator since 2005, he said identity theft is growing in the Valley. But while the common perception is that it happens on the Internet, where cyber thieves hack into bank accounts, much more money and much more time is lost to thieves acting locally, Turney said. It's the quickest, easiest, safest way to steal cash, often to fuel a drug habit, he said. Cases can range from small forgeries -- a guy grabs someone's checkbook and uses it at the bar -- to multi-accomplice theft rings like the case of John Bo Phillips. The most he's ever seen a victim lose was $10,000, Turney said. Phillips, 23, in police interviews acknowledged being at the head of an enterprise that included nine co-defendants in Anchorage and Fairbanks. He went to prison for five years in December 2006 on 15 counts of fraud, forgery, theft and criminal impersonation. Turney and his sister, Pearl Holston, a Fairbanks detective who worked that end of the case, estimated that between $300,000 and $500,000 had been stolen. That's the case that got Turney started in the identity theft game. Thieves follow a pretty basic pattern, Turney explained. First, they steal mail. They look for anything useful like an account number or a checkbook. Next, they use home computers to print identification documents with the targets' names on them but with the thieves' own photographs. Then they laminate the ID cards atop some other card, such as a grocery store reward card or video rental card, in order to make them appear authentic. "If you flipped it over you'd be like, 'that ain't no ... ID,' " Turney said. But most businesses don't even ask people to take them out of their wallets. Once they have the checks and the ID cards, "you're going to hit it while it's hot," Turney said. "It's go, go, go until they're no good," then on to the next one, he said. When a criminal forges a check, that's one count, he said. Add to that the theft of the checks and theft from the store, plus fraud for the transaction, and that's four charges. With all that potential jail time looming, the prevailing feeling among most of the criminals he's spoken to, Turney said, is that "after you write one, what's the difference?" Lately, Turney acknowledges, he's kind of become the point man for this type of crime among Valley law enforcement agencies. "Things might be slower down in Palmer so I might have time to really get my teeth into one," Turney said. "Palmer is small and it is quiet, but bad things do happen in Palmer." But also it's because these crimes can get pretty complicated. Stores manager usually erase their surveillance camera footage weekly, so officers have to be on the ball to get that evidence. Turney has a good relationship with all the stores' loss-prevention officers. He's seen most of the regular scams and can offer insight to patrol officers as to what's going on in a particular case. Wasilla Police Investigator Scott Vukich said he's working on a big theft and fraud case right now that involves Palmer Police and the troopers in its various elements. He's worked with Turney on it. "I think he has a lot of experience doing this," Vukich said. Identity crimes typically involve several police agencies, he said. Some of the victims in his case, he said, reside in Anchorage. But the crimes happened in Wasilla. Forgers and thieves don't generally stick to a specific geographic area, he said. Turney has a lot of advice for how to avoid getting ripped off by identity theft. Businesses should always handle a customer's ID. Better yet, they could require two forms of ID. Turney said he's got a store surveillance video where the suspect "sat there and argued with the manager for 30 minutes about why you don't have to take your ID out of your wallet." In the end, the store took his check and the suspect left with his merchandise. That's the exception to the rule, Turney said. The majority of thieves will turn and walk away. And homeowners, he said, should lock their mailboxes. Or get a post office box. He said he's seen homes burglarized and thieves making off with checkbooks and bank statements, along with the TV and the stereo. Homeowners should secure their personal information at home in a safe, just like they would a gun or jewelry. They shouldn't leave checks in their cars. Credit card companies, he said, often send out "courtesy checks" with a customer's statement. Often, people don't even know they're getting them. "Crooks love those; they can take them down and use them for a couple thousand dollars," Turney said. Consumers should opt out of the program if they don't want the checks, he said. Turney said he does sometimes get tired of looking over bank statements and canceled checks. He talked to his sister about it. In Fairbanks, she's seen a decline in identity theft and has moved on to other things. "People know that they can come to us and we can get it done," she told him.
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