Fraud Probe Spans California and Arizona As Authorities Discover Boxes of Stolen Credit Cards and Passports
San Diego County sheriff’s investigators say they’ve arrested two suspects after uncovering evidence of identity theft in a sprawling fraud probe.
Detectives seized boxes of forged documents, stolen credit cards and passports during the operation, reports FOX 5 San Diego.
Katie Ann Rhew, 44, of Temecula and Michael Sundstrom, 46, of San Marcos were arrested after searches at their homes. The probe centers on fraud, forgery and burglary with evidence suggesting dozens of victims in Southern California and Arizona.
Rhew was booked on suspicion of identity theft, possession of personal identifying information belonging to more than 10 victims, forgery, burglary, possession of methamphetamine, committing a felony while on bail and criminal conspiracy. Sundstrom was booked on suspicion of identity theft, mail theft, possession of stolen property and criminal conspiracy.
Detective Brian Bentley outlined the types of property investigators believe may have been stolen.
“Mail, credit cards, personal identifying information stolen from either a mailbox or it could have been someone’s vehicle…
We are in the process of going through all of that evidence and trying to contact as many of these people as possible, so I don’t have an exact number yet. But I can say we seized a lot of evidence yesterday. There was well over 100 different individuals’ personal identifying information.”
Bentley advised residents to regularly monitor bank accounts to guard against financial crimes.
“You really have to be on top of monitoring your online financial presence. One of the ways I tell people quite often is managing and monitoring your own bank accounts. It has to be a regular kind of a thing.”
Bail was set at about $600,000 for each suspect with arraignment scheduled for Tuesday.
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