Densely populated areas are the most common hot spots for identity fraud in the United States, according to a report from the fraud management company ID Analytics Inc.
The report is based on data from the San Diego company's ID Network, which observes incidents of identity theft as well as synthetic identity fraud, which involves the use of fake documents for people who do not exist.
The states with the highest rates of identity fraud are New York, California, Nevada, and Arizona. The state with the least identity fraud is Wyoming, followed by Vermont and Montana. Though the data was normalized to avoid the natural lift certain states would get from having higher populations, the per-capita rates of fraud were nevertheless higher for high-population states.
The ZIP codes with the highest rates of identity fraud were in New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles.
Stephen Coggeshall, the chief technology officer for ID Analytics, said that high-population areas are more inviting to fraudsters because it is easier for them to blend in. For example, he noted that criminals could avoid detection more easily if they fraudulently obtained credit cards sent to unused mailboxes in a densely populated apartment complex.
The study did not address whether factors specific to a region, such as local laws, made them more appealing to fraudsters, he said.
