BY DAN HAMMOCK
The Daily World
A man attempting to make a purchase at the US Cellular Store on Wishkah Friday morning was arrested on multiple felony counts involving identity theft, forgery and criminal conspiracy when officers found numerous fake US passport and credit cards in his wallet.
“A customer came in Friday about 9:30 and handed me a passport card,” said employee Carrie Gonzales of Aberdeen. “He didn’t know his address, he kept texting somebody asking for information, he pulled out a prescription card, he had no legitimate ID, so when we got to the point we couldn’t verify his identity our manager did some Googling to find the name, and it was connected to a lady in Iowa in the hometown where he was claiming to come from.”
Other than the suspicious behavior of the suspect, Gonzales said “there is a lot of fraud activity around our location” and employees were warned to be on the lookout for customers using US passport cards as they are a common form of ID used by identity thieves to make fraudulent purchases.
“This suspect may have ties in Aberdeen and there may be others involved in these crimes,” said Lt. Kevin Darst of the Aberdeen Police Dept., adding “We are currently looking into a second incident in Aberdeen involving passport IDs.” Darst warns merchants “to be on the lookout for fraudulent US passport cards. The cards are very good and will be hard to determine if they are fraudulent.”
“Somebody dropped (the suspect) off here, and he’s still out there,” said Gonzales, who added the man attempted to buy almost $2,000 worth of equipment that morning.
Officers responded just before 10 a.m. Friday and found a Hispanic male in a red shirt attempting to buy a phone using a fake name. When confronted, the man said he had lied about his identity and was arrested on scene and booked into the Aberdeen jail. He will be arraigned in Superior Court in Montesano.
Officers searched the suspect and found seven US passport cards, each with different names but the same date of birth. They also found seven TD Bank Visa debit cards with matching names to the passport cards, all with the same account number. A New York state ID card was found and appeared to show the man’s true identity as a 22-year old New Yorker.
“The New York ID is a valid ID, but we are not sure if it is his real ID yet,” said Darst. “We are currently working with the State Department and Homeland Security to try to find out who this guy is.”
