Score another victory for law enforcement. New York’s “North Country Gazette” recently reported a Russian man in his twenty’s has been sentenced for anywhere from 3 ½ to 10 ½ years in prison for stealing over $1 million under other people’s identities. He also pleaded guilty to “attempting to steal” an additional $10.7 million from wealthy victims.

Igor Klopov was an expert at using the internet to steal sensitive information on his victims, especially those who had expensive homes with a large home equity line of credit. A lot of his victims were found through the Forbes 400 list.

Klopov was able to get help from four others around the country. They are reported to be located in: Michigan; Florida; Texas and Kentucky. All of the co-conspirators have been sentenced for their individual involvement in the ID theft ring. Klopov is the last to receive sentencing.

This story ends an investigation that took over a year to close. Agencies involved were the US Secret Service, New York City Police Department and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Identity Theft Unit. The thieves were caught when an investigator went online undercover, posing to Klopov as one of his own accomplices. Klopov fell for the setup and came to meet the “accomplice” in New York to collect $7 million worth of gold that was stolen from a victim and ready for him to collect.

Stories like this one give proof that these thieves can be caught and prosecuted. We hope to bring you many more of these stories in the months to come.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Articles Concerning Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.