Thieves Stole Identities to Tap Home Equity

"We are a frequent target of these kinds of attacks." Rabe said. "And while we may not be 100 percent successful at stopping them, we certainly have lots of measures in place to prevent this sort of thing."

The government alleges that Olokodana and other conspirators also traded personal and financial data of their victims using free Web mail accounts. Investigators say the men took care to mask their location by variously accessing the e-mail accounts via public wireless networks and through wireless PC cards acquired using billing information of other victims.

Arrested Monday were Derrick Polk, 45, of Los Angeles; Oludola Akinmola, 37, and Oladeji Craig, 39, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; and Oluwajide Ogunbiyi, 32, of Springfield, Ill. They appeared Monday in federal courts in Newark, Buffalo, Los Angeles and Springfield. All four face charges of wire fraud, which carries a penalty of five to 50 years.

Between August and October 2008, charges were brought against Olokodana, and Yomi Jagunna, 44, both of Queens, N.Y.; Abayomi Lawal, 45, of Brooklyn; and Daniel Yummi, 40, of New York. They also face wire fraud charges.

Yummi's court-appointed attorney Marc Leibman said his client is married and has a family in California, despite having been deported from the United States previously. Leibman said "the government's evidence against my client appears to be insurmountable."

"Mr. Yummi is presumed innocent until he pleads guilty," Leibman said. "But we will strive for the most just result."

An attorney for Olokodana said he had just been retained and was not able to speak about his client or the case. Calls to attorneys for the others charged were not returned.

Last week, Precious Matthews, 27, of Miami, and Ezenwa Onyedebelu, 20, and Brandy Anderson, 30, both of Dallas, pleaded guilty in Virginia to conspiring to possess personal identification information with intent to commit wire fraud, conspiring to commit wire fraud and conspiring to gain unauthorized access to computers.

Matthews and Onyedebelu face a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison, a fine of up to $1 million and up to five years of supervised release, according to prosecutors. Anderson faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and up to three years of supervised release.

In a report released last summer, the Credit Union Information Security Professionals Association said a number of credit unions have beefed up security in response to an increase in home-equity fraud, but those precautions have come with their own costs: "Customer service call times have increased one minute on average due to increased security verifications, and some legitimate members are failing increased security questions," the report noted.

Anne Wallace, president of the Identity Theft Assistance Center, a nonprofit industry group, said properly training bank employees to detect fraud is critical.

"It's a challenging problem for companies across the board," Wallace said, "how to train your employees to balance customer service and protecting critical assets."

Wallace said consumers can help combat this growing form of fraud by keeping a close eye on bank statements and by taking full advantage of a federal law that guarantees consumers a free copy of their credit report from each of the three major credit reporting bureaus. Consumers can request credit reports three times a year for free at each credit bureau.