SAN ANTONIO – A 14-count indictment was unsealed Wednesday in San Antonio, charging five people with coordinating an identity theft and fraud scheme targeting service members, veterans and other elderly.
- Based in Philippines and US
- 1 man former U.S. Army employee
- Thousands of victims
The charged defendants, who were based both in the Philippines and the United States, are alleged to have used stolen personal identity information of thousands of military members to access Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs benefits sites and stole millions of dollars.
The defendants - Robert Wayne Boling, Jr., Fredrick Brown, Trorice Crawford, Allan Albert Kerr, and Jongmin Seok - were charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identify theft.
“Our message is pretty simple,” said Attorney General William P. Barr. “It doesn’t matter where on this planet you reside. If you target our veterans, we’re coming for you. Our veterans were willing to risk everything to protect this Nation from foreign threats. Now it’s our turn to seek justice for them.”
According to the indictment, the defendants’ identity theft and fraud scheme began in 2014 when Brown, then a civilian employee at a U.S. Army installation, stole thousands of military members’ PII, including names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and Department of Defense identification numbers.
Brown is alleged to have then provided the stolen information to Boling, who exploited the information in various ways together with his Philippines-based co-defendants Kerr and Seok.
The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are coordinating with the Department of Justice to notify and provide resources to the thousands of identified victims.
Announcements also will follow regarding steps taken to secure military members’ information and benefits from theft and fraud.