A federal courtroom sentenced a former Navy IT manager to greater than 5 years in jail this month after he falsely claimed that he wanted to conduct background checks for the Navy as a part of an identity theft scam and made cash off the con.
Former Navy chief Marquis A. Hooper, 32, created an online account in August 2018 with an unidentified firm that runs a database containing personally identifiable info for thousands and thousands of individuals, in keeping with federal officers.
Though the database is proscribed to companies and authorities businesses who’ve proven a have to entry the private info, Hooper falsely claimed that his job with the Navy required him to conduct background checks.
After opening the database account, Hooper added his spouse and co-defendant, Natasha Chalk, to the account, the Justice Division stated in an Oct. 16 information launch.
“They then stole over 9,000 folks’s [personally identifiable information] and offered it to different people on the darkish internet for $160,000 in bitcoin,” the discharge states.
Couple used their ties with the Navy to steal 9K identities, officials say
Those that bought the data used it to commit different crimes, in keeping with the Justice Division, together with one particular person who created a pretend driver’s license from the data in an try to empty cash from the sufferer’s checking account.
When Hooper’s database was shuttered for suspected fraud in December 2018, he and Chalk sought to regain entry to the database with an unindicted co-conspirator. Hooper instructed the unindicted co-conspirator to say the Navy required him to conduct background checks when making use of for a brand new database account.
However the firm instructed the unindicted co-conspirator {that a} provide officer with buying authority should signal the contract. In response, Hooper offered paperwork falsely figuring out an identity theft sufferer as a Naval provide officer to the unindicted co-conspirator, the Justice Division stated.
“These paperwork included a false contract, a pretend driver’s license for the identity theft sufferer, and a cast letter purporting to be from a commanding officer in the Navy,” the Justice Division stated in a information launch. “The unindicted co-conspirator submitted the pretend paperwork to the corporate, however the firm determined to not open the brand new database account.”
Hooper, who was stationed in Japan in 2018, and Chalk, who served in the Navy Reserves, had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Fresno in 2021 on prices of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft.
Chalk’s sentencing is scheduled for subsequent month, and she or he faces a most sentence of 20 years in jail and a advantageous of $250,000.
