Next Phase in Identity Theft?
Do companies have a monitoring service to detect if another company is created using their name? Do companies carefully monitor their own corporate credit? What would happen if a criminal setup a corporation that mirrorred your own- for the purpose of ripping off services and goods using your corporate credit and your company’s good name?
The FBI relates a similar story here.
Two private security companies with nearly identical names- One of the firms, based in Michigan, was named Executive Outcome Inc. The other, based in South Africa, was called Executive Outcomes Inc.
The criminal maneuvering began in late 2001, when a British debt collector called the Michigan-based Executive Outcome, run by Pasquale John DiPofi. The collection agency asked if DiPofi wanted help collecting $23 million owed, supposedly to them, by the government of Sierra Leone for military equipment, security, and training.
One slight problem. The millions of dollars weren’t owed to DiPofi’s company. It was owed to the other firm, Executive Outcomes, a half a world away.
DiPofi hired the collection agency to pursue the debt. He and an employee, Christopher Belan, then began producing documents to back up their claim. They also registered a new company in Michigan and in England to mirror the name of the South African company.
The debt collector went ahead and filed paperwork with the government of Sierra Leone on DiPofi’s behalf. That’s when alarm bells starting ringing: Sierra Leone had already agreed to a payment plan with the South African company. Understandably, the government balked when the new claim was submitted. A legal skirmish followed between DiPofi and the South African company.
Then, the conflict turned malicious. A representative of the South African company got a phone call urging him not to be “greedy” and to reach a settlement with DiPofi’s company soon-or else. The representative also received a letter with several interior pictures of his homes in London and Paris.
And then the FBI became involved once the threats became personal. The Gmen seized DiPofi’s office computer and was easily able to find the forged documents. Fines and jailtime was handed out, and the South African company was given money to compensate for this foolishness.
The FBI says that this kind of this does not happen now. But given that personal identity theft is so prevalent and easy to perpetrate, how long until a company’s identity is compromised?
