DMV, FBI Investigators Break Up Employee Ring of License Thieves as Result of Undercover Sting Operation

Sacramento-Officials from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) today confirmed that four employees have been arrested by DMV investigators and FBI agents and charged with creating and selling false driver licenses, identification cards and vehicle registration documents by using customer information they had access to while performing their job duties. The arrests came as a result of a wide-ranging joint 20-month investigation that resulted in federal charges for the employees who worked at the Oakland-Claremont office.

FBI and DMV investigators say the suspects stole the information from confidential computer records, created counterfeit documents and sold them to four “brokers” who bought them to resell to other criminals. (The so-called “brokers” are not DMV employees.) Michael Champion, Deputy Director of the DMV Investigations Division, and John McClellan, Deputy Director of the DMV Licensing Operations Division, stressed that all customers whose records were compromised will be contacted and all will be provided with new licenses with different identification information.

“We have zero tolerance for employees who try to ‘game’ the system and betray the positions of trust they are given,” said McClellan. It makes me extremely angry to think that we once considered these people members of the DMV ‘family’, but the fact of the matter is that it’s almost impossible to get by all of the security and systems safeguards we now have in place. Thanks to the FBI and our own staff of sworn officers, we’ve subsequently clamped down with even stiffer security measures to prevent this kind of thing ever happening again,” he said.

Champion said that DMV will “flag the licenses of the customers affected by this operation for the next few years and monitor any suspicious inquiries or actions involving their documents. We are doing and we will continue to do whatever is necessary to ensure their privacy.”

Champion and McClellan said that the suspected employees have been charged with a number of federal crimes including conspiracy, mail fraud, theft of honest services, as well as identity-theft related felonies. The DMV will follow strict state guidelines and administrative policies regarding their employment status. One of the suspects was arrested in late June as the joint arrest operation began to unfold. The others were arrested yesterday.

Champion said that customer and driver license security has “absolutely been of the highest importance for the Department since October, 2000, when a number of stringent anti-fraud measures were introduced. And we’ve continued to add additional layers of security ever since. And we’re also in the process of beefing up our investigative staff, so we can throw even more resources at internal security.

Champion said that the DMV Investigations Division and the Office of Internal Investigations have participated in more than 1600 California Driver License-related counterfeiting arrests over the past five years, and that tighter security procedures in place in the 168 DMV offices has foiled an additional 5000 persons who were trying to steal someone else’s identity by applying for a bogus replacement licenses.

DMV, FBI INVESTIGATORS BREAK UP EMPLOYEE RING OF LICENSE THIEVES AS RESULT OF UNDERCOVER STING OPERATION

DMV, FBI INVESTIGATORS BREAK UP EMPLOYEE RING OF LICENSE
THIEVES AS RESULT OF UNDERCOVER STING OPERATION