A Miami police officer, accused of using an accident victim’s ATM card to steal $460, has been sentenced to 13 months in prison.

Christian Alvarez-Vega, 37, was one of eight people arrested by Miami police as part of a public corruption squad raid. He was charged with civil rights violations and identity theft.

The arrests were questioned by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, who said her office had not been contacted in one case and prosecutors had declined to bring charges in another. Within two months of the arrests, state prosecutors refused to prosecute five of the eight people arrested.

According to reports, the victim was a passenger in a car crash in January, and Alvarez-Vega responded to the scene. The woman was drunk, and Alvarez-Vega drove her home. Afterward, he found her bank card in his patrol car.

He kept it and called her home at 3:30 a.m., saying he needed her PIN number as part of the investigation. She provided the number for him, and hours later, while still in uniform, the officer made two cash withdrawals; one for $400 and the second for $60.

Alvarez-Vega had been with the department for 12 years.

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LifeLock will also monitor for any loan or services activity using your information, such as payday or mortgage loans, public records, alias records, and court records. And LifeLock’s eRecon™ service will search the Web for the illegal selling or trading of your information.

In addition, LifeLock can provide you with WalletLock™, which means that if your wallet is ever lost or stolen, a LifeLock representative will help cancel and replace the lost contents.

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Schrodt and his victim, Richard Burke, attended the same high school, knew each other, and even looked somewhat alike. This made things easy for Schrodt, who obtained a duplicate of Burke’s driver’s license. Burke’s mother notified police after her son discovered that $6,000 was missing from his bank account, and someone had tried to purchase a new truck using his identity. Schrodt was arrested at a Mesa apartment that police say he rented using Burke’s identity.

It’s unfortunate that this happened to someone serving his country. It’s unfortunate that this type of thing happens every day to all sorts of people – identity theft is a growing problem.

So how do your protect yourself? Most identity theft protection services tell you that you’ve become a victim after the fact. That’s where LifeLock is different.

LifeLock is proactive, meaning your information will be protected and you’ll be alerted before anything bad happens. The LifeLock Identity Alert™ system provides broader identity theft coverage, greater control and early notification of both credit and non-credit related identity threats. In other words, if your personal information is ever compromised, you’ll be notified immediately, and you can nip the problem in the bud.

In addition, LifeLock’s eRecon™ service monitors more than 10,000 sites for the illegal selling or trading of your personal information. If any such activity is detected, you’ll be notified and LifeLock will help take steps to resolve the issue.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, LifeLock backs it all up with a $1 million guarantee, meaning that if you ever do fall victim to identity theft while under LifeLock’s watch, they’ll spend up to $1 million to make things right.

Now that’s protection you can count on.

eceive 30 days free and get a 10 percent discount on enrollment with the LifeLock Promo Code “Defense.”

Nelson and his co-conspirators stole data from the files of several health care institutions, including pediatric cancer centers, to file for refunds under the stolen names of adults, claiming the kids with cancer as dependents.

But this isn’t the first time cancer patients have been targeted for identity theft. Four women in Florida were indicted earlier this year for stealing information from clinics, including an oncology practice, in order to open fraudulent credit card accounts.

And last year, a woman was sentenced to four years in prison after using her position as a caregiver to a breast cancer patient to access the woman’s credit cards and bank accounts.

As a LifeLock customer, you’ll have peace of mind, knowing that the proactive LifeLock Identity Alert™ is monitoring for both credit and non-credit related identity threats. If any suspicious activity is found, you’ll be notified immediately, so that action can be taken to clamp down the illicit activity.

In addition, LifeLock will request your annual credit reports for you, so that you can carefully review them, to be sure that there’s no unauthorized charges.

LifeLock’s eRecon™ service will search over 10,000 sites for the illegal selling or trading of your personal information, and not only will you be alerted if there’s a problem, but LifeLock will also help you take the necessary steps to resolve any issues.

If you ever do fall victim to identity theft while under LifeLock’s watchful eye, LifeLock’s member services representatives will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help resolve the problem. And on top of that, you’ll have LifeLock’s $1 Million Guarantee, which means that LifeLock will spend up to $1 million to make things right and get you – and your credit – back on track.

Call LifeLock today and take the first step toward peace of mind.

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Phishing is the criminally fraudulent process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as user names, passwords and credit card numbers by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. In other words, a thief sends out an e-mail asking the recipient to respond with information for one reason or another. Thieves will also use pop-up windows that often contain links that take the computer user to a site that appears legitimate and asks for personal information.

The Better Business Bureau has issued a warning about the Amazon scam. Identity thieves are sending e-mails that appear to be from Amazon.com, thanking the customer for a recent purchase. The e-mail includes a bogus order number and price, and asks the customer to click a link. The link either downloads a virus to the user’s computer, or leads to a Web site that asks the user to input his or her credit card information and Amazon.com log in information.

If your information were input without your permission as part of this scam, your credit – and your good name – could be ruined.

Why risk it? Protect yourself with LifeLock. With eRecon™, LifeLock will search the Web for the illegal selling or trading of your personal information. If any activity is detected, you’ll be alerted immediately, and LifeLock will help you take the steps necessary to resolve the problem.

LifeLock’s Personal Breach Detection™ Service also actively monitors the unregulated Internet and file sharing networks for your identity information. If you are found to be at risk, you’ll be notified by e-mail and LifeLock will protect you against accidental personal information disclosures.

Call LifeLock today, and sleep better tonight.

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Albert Gonzalez

But that was then. Now the cyber-world black market is awash with stolen “dumps,” the data from the magnetic strips on the back of bank and credit cards. Ironically, when Albert Gonzalez hijacked the computers at Hannaford Brothers, Heartland Payment Systems and other corporations, and stole account information on 170-million and credit cards, he flooded the market, and effectively drove down the value of the stolen data.

When the VerizonBusiness 2009 Data Breach Investigations Report came out earlier this year, their analysts had found prices to be as low as $.50 per credit card account.

Virus analysts at Kaspersky Lab examine malware found on the Internet or their customers’ servers, and sometimes they can work their way back through a maze of redirects to find the thieves’ lair. This week, Dmitry Bestuzhev, one of the Kaspersky analysts, wrote a blog post on Viruslist.com describing a site he discovered that offers stolen credit card numbers from all over the world.

Prices ranged from $2 to $6, with the lower priced cards being from the U.S. and the more expensive card coming from Germany. On the site are drop down menus allowing customers to specify what kind and how many cards they want and from what country of origin. The dealers even offer technical support and guarantees.

Identity thieves can buy, sell and trade identity information over the Internet in seconds. LifeLock’s eRecon™ patrols over 10,000 criminal websites, monitoring the Internet for the illegal selling of your information, and notifies you if your personal information is found being misused online.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more. Enroll using the LifeLock promotion code DEFENSE and pay only $9 a month.

In case you’re not familiar with the Stevies, they are what the New York Post called “the business world’s own Oscar Awards.” The awards’ name is taken from the name Stephen, which is derived from the Greek for “crowned.”

LifeLock is an industry leader in identity theft protection, and a company that places a high value on customer service and innovations:

• Executive of the Year – CEO Todd Davis
• Customer Service Executive of the Year – Tammy Valdez, VP of Member Services
• Customer Service Department of the Year
• Best Overall Company
• Fastest Growing Company
• Best Product of the Year – eRecon

eRecon was just introduced in 2008, and has become an important weapon in thwarting the identity thieves that buy, sell and trade stolen information on the Internet. ERecon patrols the Internet, looking for bits of members’ identities such as Social Security numbers, email addresses or account numbers.

LifeLock immediately contacts members by phone if any information is detected in any of the 10,000 chat rooms, websites and bulletin boards eRecon monitors.

The 2009 Stevie Award winners will be announced June 22 at a ceremony to be held at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City. Cheryl Casone, of Fox Business Network, will host the award show.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about LifeLock and the identity theft protection services it provides its nearly 1.5 million members. Enroll using the LifeLock promo code DEFENSE and pay only $9 a month for protection.

The most common source of information for identity thieves is a lost or stolen wallet. Only LifeLock provides their customers with WalletLock, a service that helps to swiftly cancel the credit cards and official documents before thieves can use them. You have to wonder if the other companies aren’t aware of how important this protection is.

Only LifeLock monitors the thousands of known websites, chat rooms and forums that identity wholesalers use to buy, sell and trade stolen identities and personal financial information. Why don’t their competitors provide this service?

Only LifeLock monitors the millions of address changes submitted to the U.S. Postal Service. They created this service because they know ID thieves commonly divert their victims’ mail so they can more easily gather the information they need. If it happens to a LifeLock member, the company will be there to help protect them.

LifeLock knows there’s no way to absolutely prevent identity theft, but if their system ever fails in any way to protect a customer, they provide a $1,000,000 total service guarantee (Restrictions apply. See lifelock.com for details.)  and pay for any associated recovery costs.

Visit LifeLock.com and judge for yourself. If you want to take a 30-day “test drive,” enroll using the LifeLock promo code Defense.

The crimes in which Tuknov is alleged to have played a part are an example of the complex and convoluted nature of international identity theft rings.

Tuknov was working with sources in Russia who sent him stolen debit card numbers and related PINs, according to the indictment. Tuknov relayed that information to an associate in the Dominican Republic who then encoded it onto blank debit cards.

The newly encoded cards were then delivered to other criminals in New York City, where they were used to make ATM cash withdrawals from the victims’ accounts, prosecutors say. The money was sent to the initial sources in Russia.

Once Tuknov’s Russian associates received the cash, they sent him more numbers and his commission for coordinating the tortuous criminal activity.

Total losses for the crime ring’s victims are thought to be roughly $371,000.

LifeLock, the award winning identity theft protection service, has recently developed eRecon™ a new tool against identity theft rings. Because stolen identities are often bought, sold and traded over the Internet, eRecon monitors more than 10,000 Internet websites and chat rooms used by identity thieves.

If any of their clients’ information—name, Social Security number, account numbers, etc.—is detected, Life Lock immediately notifies their customer and assists them in canceling accounts and notifying the appropriate authorities.

Visit their website at LifeLock.com to learn more about eRecon™ and their other exclusive services. If you decide to enroll in the identity theft protection program used by almost 1.5 million Americans, use the LifeLock promo code Defense for a discount on service and a 30 day trial.