|
COPYRIGHT 2005 Society for the Advancement of Education
PRIOR TO SEPT. 11, governments and businesses were sensitive to identity imposters, but they viewed the problem primarily as a financial matter--that is, as a significant component of fraud. Called identity theft, statistics were gathered about its effects on businesses, hearings were conducted on its harm to individual victims and, in 1998, Federal legislation was passed to criminalize it.
However, it was the events of Sept. 11, and the investigation conducted afterwards, that awakened society to the fact that the criminal use of false identifiers and false identification documents is not just a significant component of fraud, but of terrorism. Further examination has revealed that they are an integral part of many crimes committed by global criminal groups, including drug traffickers, gun runners, cyber criminals, and alien smugglers. In each of these areas, the organized criminal enterprises exploit weak or nonexistent identity verification systems. This broad criminal use of false identifiers and false identification documents requires a new term different from "identity theft," which has a more limited connotation. We refer to it as "identity fraud."
On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four jet airliners, crashing two of them into the World Trade Center towers in New York, one into the Pentagon in Virginia, and a fourth into a field in western Pennsylvania. Two of the terrorists were Abdul Azziz Alomari and Ahmed Saleh Alghamdi. Alomari was part of a group of five who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, bound from Boston to Los Angeles, which ultimately crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower. Alghamdi was in another group of five terrorists who hijacked United Airlines Flight 175, also bound from Boston to Los Angeles, which slammed into the south towel. In addition to the obvious acts of terrorism, Alomari and Alghamdi were guilty of identity fraud.
About a month before the hijackings, the pair used an accomplice to approach a secretary of a Virginia attorney. They paid her to complete false Virginia identity affidavits and residency certifications. The documents indicated that the two had Virginia residences when, in fact, they Jived in Maryland motels. Using the false documents, notarized by the Virginia secretary, they obtained Virginia state identification documents. These were used by them to board the ill-fated planes.
Reports are replete that the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 hijackings made wholesale use of false identities, fraudulent identification documents, and fictitious Social Security numbers. Purportedly, five of the terrorists, in addition to...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
