14 DAY TRIAL // Fifty-three individuals were charged on Thursday with identity theft and fraud offenses in connection with a sophisticated criminal operation coordinated from Bergen County, New Jersey.
Fourty-three were accused in a single criminal complaint of being directly implicated in the organization, dubbed the "Park Criminal Enterprise" by investigators, where they played various roles.
The gang was allegedly coordinated by a man called Sang-Hyun Park and involved obtaining, brokering and selling identity documents for use in various types of fraud, including credit card fraud, bank fraud or tax fraud.
The whole operation was built around the misuse of Social Security cards that were issued primarily to Chinese citizens employed in American territories.
Members of the organization legally obtained or fraudulently manufactured driver's licenses and other identity documents in the names of people to whom such Social Security cards belonged.
Other co-conspirators then agreed to add the Chinese identities as authorized users on their credit cards, with the purpose of building up their credit score.
Once this was achieved, the identities were used to obtain bank accounts, payment cards, credit lines or loans.
The credit cards in particular were maxed out by buying various items that were later sold for cash and some rogue merchants also colluded with the identity thieves to fraudulently charge them.
Most alleged members of the Park Criminal Enterprise are of Korean descent and authorities claim they are responsible for millions of dollars in loses to various businesses, banks, credit card companies and the United States.
Ten other individuals were charged in six separate complains for offenses related to the operation. A total of fourty-seven suspects were already arrested and six remain at large.
"The sheer scope of the fraud – and the organization that allegedly committed it – is remarkable. This type of crime puts all of us at risk, not just because of the cost to our financial institutions, but also because of the threat posed by fake identification documents," U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman, said.