A new study by the Economic Crime Institute work group, based at Utica College, has found that a surprising number of identity thieves are women.
The researchers have been given access to Secret Service case files on identity theft spanning from 2000 to 2006. The group’s findings provide the first-ever look at the criminals and victims in major identity theft cases.
“Among the results reported were:
- Only 8% of the criminals were friends or relatives of the victims.
- 36% of the identity theft crimes in the case files were committed by
women. That is a greater percentage of women committing crimes than any
other category. - A high percentage of ID crimes were committed using high tech methods such as stealing of data from company databases.
- Mail theft was a factor in only 9% of the cases.
The average loss for each crime was more than $30,000. In one case, criminals stole $1.3 million before being arrested by federal authorities.
The data provided by the Secret Service included about 700 case files. The group omitted so called “existing account” fraud cases from its research, also called “credit-card only” identity theft.