This week the Department of Justice announced that five individuals have been formally charged with stealing millions of dollars from disabled veterans through an international scam.
According to an article published by Stripes.com, “The 14-count indictment unsealed Wednesday in San Antonio, Texas, charges five people living in the United States and the Philippines with coordinating an identify-theft and fraud scheme targeting servicemembers and veterans, including a former prisoner of war, using personal information stolen by a former civilian employee at a U.S. Army base in Korea. The defendants, Robert Wayne Boling, Jr., Fredrick Brown, Trorice Crawford, Allan Albert Kerr, and Jongmin Seok, were charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identify theft based on their roles in the scheme. Boling, a U.S. citizen, Kerr, an Australian citizen, and Seok, a South Korean citizen, were arrested in the Philippines. Brown and Crawford, both U.S. citizens, were arrested in Las Vegas and San Diego, respectively, according to the news release. Brown has been detained pending trial. Crawford is awaiting a detention hearing at the San Diego Metropolitan Correctional Center.”
The charges identify a scheme that started in 2014 when Brown, a civilian medical records technician employee, photographed the medical records of thousands of servicemen captured in the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application (AHLTA) database.
The records not only contained the individual’s medical records but also had their Social Security number, Defense Department identification number, birth date, gender, mailing address, and telephone number. Brown has been accused of stealing this information and providing it to Boling who then used it to exploit the identified individuals in various ways with the help of his Philippines-based co-conspirators Kerr and Seok by logging into the eBenefits website. The indictment highlights the fact that these individuals specifically targeted older, disabled veterans because “they were less likely to utilize online account services”.
Once they had access to the online account of these veterans, they accessed the bank account information which allowed them to steal the benefits payments by changing the bank routing information to their own bank account. After this, Boling worked with Crawford to hire people who would accept “the deposit of stolen funds into their bank accounts and then send the funds through international wire remittance services to the defendants and others” according to the news release.
Both of the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are working with the Department of Justice to alert and compensate stolen resources to the thousands of identified victims. The next steps will be announced with regards to steps taken to secure military members’ information and prevent them in the future from benefits theft and fraud.
To learn more about this important news affecting veterans, click HERE.
Relevant pages: Veterans Disability