BankThink

Investigators Use Phone Signal to Bust ID Thief

Perhaps one of the security benefits of mobile wallets will be that the pairing of phones with payments makes users – and fraudsters – easier to track.

Robert Delgado of Monterey Park, Calif., received an eight-year prisons sentence for identity theft after investigators used his phone's signal to track his movements, Cnet reported Wednesday. Delgado, who used stolen and fraudulently opened bank accounts to make purchases, was also sentenced to five years of supervised release.

Delgado's phone number was found online by a postal inspector who was investigating a complaint by one of his victims. The inspector got a warrant to track Delgado's phone by GPS, and this led police to his home – where, during a raid, police found a hard drive with the personal data of over 300,000 people, the article said.

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