Miguel Bell, 29, is accused of leading a ring of 29 ID thieves who stole $1.3 million from their victims’ bank accounts. The Philadelphia man pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges of conspiracy, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft.

According to the current charges against him, Bell and his co-conspirators stole the names, birth dates, Social Security numbers and bank account numbers of 34 account holders at Citizens, Wachovia, Sun Trust, Sovereign, M & T, Commerce (now RD Bank) and PNC banks.

The accused criminals then produced bogus identification so check runners could pose as the bank customers and deposit bogus checks then withdraw the funds fraudulently.

Maybe he’s guilty, and maybe he isn’t, but he has a lot stacked against him:

• Three of his girlfriends said Bell got them involved in the crimes and that they provided him with victims’ personal and bank account information between September 2005 and November 2008.

• Bell got in a car wreck in June 2006. A Philadelphia police officer found fake driver’s licenses, credit cards and checks, notes with identifying information of five people, a map to a Citizens Bank in Vermont.

• A fraudulent document submitted in April 2007 by a check runner to a Citizens Bank in Delaware had Bell’s fingerprints on it.

• Since 1999, Bell has pleaded guilty to unrelated charges of forgery, receiving stolen property, criminal conspiracy, tampering with public information and DUI.

Maybe he’s guilty, and maybe he isn’t. I’m just saying …

Artur Grigoryan pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Grigoryan and his accomplice Artur Harutyunyan, also from Armenia, installed card-skimming devices at the checkout counters of Rite Aid drugstores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware with the help of a female Rite Aid employee.

The nearly undetectable card readers recorded the information from the magnetic strips on the back of bankcards as the owners used them to pay for their purchases. The account numbers and PINs were transferred to blank debit cards, which were used to withdraw more than $570,000 from the 70-plus victims’ accounts.

Grigoryan spent two years and two months in jail after his arrest in July 2007. With time off for good behavior, the time served meets the requirement of the 30 to 36-month mandatory sentence. He was also ordered to pay restitution to the financial institutions he stole from, but because he is about to be deported, even the judge said it was unlikely the money would ever be repaid.

Attorney Michael Engel claimed Grigoryan was pressured by Harutyunyan to participate in the crime, and that people Engle referred to as Armenian gangsters threatened Grigoryan and his family in Armenia.

Harutyunyan also pleaded guilty to the crimes and will be sentenced later this year. His attorney claimed Grigoryan recruited his client.

Grigoryan came to the United States from Armenia on a student visa, but didn’t return home when his visa expired.

Charles Belim

Belim, 58, his wife, Jacqueline Belim, and other co-conspirators stole purses and wallets containing credit cards, photo ID and other personally identifying documents needed for ID theft. The identity thieves then donned glasses, scarves and other fashion accessories to fool bank workers into allowing them to withdraw money from the victims’ accounts.

In some cases, one member of the ID theft ring deposited worthless checks made out for thousands of dollars into the victims’ accounts. Before the deposited checks bounced, another of the ring members arrived at the bank in full costume and makeup and withdrew money from the fraudulently inflated account.

Jacqueline Belim

Carol Silva

Stolen wallets and purses are among the most common means of obtaining information for ID theft. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s wife, Anna Bernanke, became a victim of another pick pocketing and ID theft ring, Cannon to the Wiz, when they stole her purse from the back of her chair while she was in a D.C. area Starbucks last summer.

Police spokesman Frank Sousa said 46 people, including bank managers, bank cashiers and at least one federal postal worker, are suspected of being in the ring.

The suspects used stolen personal information, payroll and rebate checks that they acquired during home and car burglaries to create fake checks they later cashed at Wal-Mart, Publix supermarkets, check cashing stores and banks.

Mario Chandler and Christopher Wright were among those arrested and are thought to be the ringleaders. Police didn’t release any other information about these or the other arrested suspects.

Businesses seem to have been hardest hit, but several residents also lost money.

Fort Lauderdale police and the U.S. Secret Service have been working together on the investigation since February.

On Thursday, law enforcement agencies across South Florida teamed up to arrest several suspects.

Arrest warrants have been issued for the remaining gang members.

This is just the latest of many similar identity theft cases involving bankers, postal workers, accountants, call center employees and others in positions of trust who have ready access to your most personal information.

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Dixon worked at the Fort Worth Reserve Joint Base until her arrest and less than honorable discharge in 2007. She used her access to military personnel and payroll records to steal bank account, driver’s license and Social Security numbers from sailors and reservist and then passed that information along to her boyfriend, Seneca Willis, who is considered the ringleader.

A bank teller at Bank of America, Angel Mitchell, told Willis how much money was in the bank accounts. Willis used the information from Dixon and Mitchell to make ID cards and fraudulent checks that were cashed with the cooperation of homeless people Willis and Zachariah Long recruited from local homeless shelters.

Dixon will be sentenced April 13. Willis, Mitchell and Long are all scheduled for March 9 court appearances. Willie Anderson and Lester Conion have already received their sentences for cashing the checks. Anderson got a 2-year prison sentence; Conion received a 10-year probation term.

There’s another suspect who has yet to be arrested.

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