Discovering that your identity has been compromised is scary and it can happen to anybody – including children.

According to the Better business Bureau, children are often easy targets because they typically do not start using their information until early adulthood, when applying for college, loans or their first credit card. Because of this, many individuals do not discover that they have been victimized until after they reach the age of 18.

http://liarcatchers.com/identity_theft_investigation.html

The BBB encourages parents to take these steps to help guard against ID Theft:

• Safeguard your child’s personal information. Keep your child’s personal identifiable information – such as a Social Security card and birth certificate – in a safe place. Do not carry the child’s Social Security card in your wallet or purse, in case those items are lost or stolen.
• Monitor your child’s credit report. As soon as you get your child’s Social Security card, you should start monitoring his or her report. Request a free credit report from www.AnnualCreditReport.com.
• Keep anti-virus software updated. Some identity thieves create viruses designed to search computers for documents containing your child’s Social Security number. Try not to store important numbers or passwords in files or folders located on your computer.
• Safely dispose of personal documents. Shred all papers that include your child’s personal information before you throw them out, and delete computer files that you no longer need.
• Pay attention to forms from school. Look for terms like “personally identifiable information,” “directory information,” and “opt-out.” Find out how your child’s information will be used, whether it will be shared and if so, with whom.

What should you do if you suspect that your child is a victim of Identity Theft?

• Contact each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies. Send a letter asking the companies to remove all accounts, inquires and collection notices associated with the child’s name or personal information. Also, explain that the child is a minor and include a copy of the Uniform Minor’s Status Declaration.
• Place a fraud alert. Ask the credit bureaus to place a fraud alert on your child’s credit report.
• Contact businesses where the child’s information was misused. Alert them to what has happened as soon as possible.
• Create an Identity Theft Report. You can do this online at www.IdentityTheft.gov.

Got a question for the BBB? Email Regional Director Kelly Trevino at ktrevino@corpuschristi.bbb.org.

You may also visit the BBB website.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office shared photos on their Facebook page of two men they are wanting to talk to about the theft of a purse from a local church.

http://liarcatchers.com/contact.php

Anyone with the names of these subjects can contact Sheriff Curt Folger at 606-365-2696.

Three people are in the hospital and one person is in police custody after an altercation in Georgetown.

Police say that the fight started between two men near the top of the stairs of an apartment building. Two women tried to break it up, and police say that is when the knife was pulled out.

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Police say each woman suffered a knife wound on their wrist. One of the men hurt his arm and shoulder in the altercation. Those three people were taken to the hospital.

The other man involved was brought in for questioning.

No charges have been filed yet and no arrests have been made.

A juvenile that escaped from custody led to an hour-long search in the Georgetown Road area.

LEX 18 has a crew on scene and captured the arrest on camera. The 15-year-old was found on Hickory Street after escaping near Georgetown Road. The teen will now face some additional charges after the escape.

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Lexington Police say the inmate was being transported by the sheriff’s office from the courthouse downtown back to the juvenile facility on Spurr Road. He managed to escape from the deputy’s cruiser.

The escapee got away on Georgetown road near New Circle Road.   Police say at one point, the inmate stopped a driver, implied he had a weapon and had the victim drive him to Corner Liquor on Georgetown Street.

The carjacked driver was not injured.

The inmate was found at an apartment on Hickory Street around 11 a.m.

Police say the teen was in prison on robbery and burglary charges.

A Lexington juvenile has been indicted as an adult in the shooting death of a Lafayette High School student earlier this year.

Demarcus Bowie was indicted on charges of murder, robbery, and tampering with evidence in the shooting death of Bobby Durrum. Durrum was found in the road on Belmont Drive in January of this year with a gunshot wound to his abdomen.

Police say that prior to the shooting, Durrum and Bowie were involved in an altercation.

http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html

A friend of the victim told LEX 18 that Durrum had been seeking to buy a gun before the incident occurred. He was the second Lafayette Student to be killed by gun violence during this school year.

15-year-old Trinity Gay was shot at Cook-Out restaurant earlier in October.

If convicted, Bowie will not face the death penalty.

A West Deptford man charged with sexually assaulting a child was arrested in Nevada after what police described as several weeks on the run, according to reports.

KVTN in Nevada reported that Humboldt County sheriff’s deputies arrested Patrick Duffy, 53, Wednesday after running the plates on a suspicious parked vehicle and finding out that the license plates had been reported stolen.

The sheriff’s department told the television station that it appeared Duffy had been on the run for several weeks and had been in the Humboldt County area for a few days.

http://liarcatchers.com/pedophile_tracking.html

There was a warrant out for Duffy’s arrest because he had failed to appear in court to answer to a charge of aggravated sexual assault on a child under 13, KVTN reported.

The sheriff’s department told the news station that Duffy was reluctant to be arrested but was ultimately taken into custody without issue.

Duffy was also charged with one count of possession of stolen property because of the stolen license plates, KVTN reported.

He is in custody in Nevada and it’s not clear when and how he will be transported to New Jersey to face the charges against him.

Virginia police announced Friday the indictment of 43 people on more than 743 charges after a two-year, multi-agency investigation into cigarette trafficking, banking fraud and money laundering.

Authorities said the ring created 29 fake businesses in Virginia, which they used to buy around 600,000 cartons of tax-exempt cigarettes in bulk, worth US$ 30 million, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

They then sold the cigarettes on the black market in regions like New York City, where high taxes make illicit smokes a relative bargain.

The investigation began in January 2015, when a bank in Fairfax county reported to local police that a group of 12 to 14 people were engaged in “check kiting” – the act of intentionally writing checks from accounts with no available funds.

http://liarcatchers.com/fraud_investigation.html

Fairfax police then discovered that the suspects were committing fraud at nine banks across the region creating losses of more than US$ 620,000.

When detectives set up a joint operation with the FBI’s Organized Crime Squad, they eventually uncovered the sprawling cigarette smuggling operation with over 150 suspects across multiple states, the Washington Post reported.

“It’s got to be one of the largest organized crime groups we’ve had,” Fairfax County Police’s Thomas Harrington said, according to the Washington Post. “It is an extremely complex case.”

The group used credit cards to rent cars, but withdrew money from their bank accounts before the transaction was completed, preventing rent-a-car companies from collecting the due payments.

Police found some of the rental cars abandoned in New York City and in Virginia. Others were stopped in transit, revealing that the suspects were using them to smuggle cigarettes up the East Coast.

Most of the suspects are originally from Mauritania, with others from Morocco, Egypt and Iraq, the Richmond-Times Dispatch reported.

Some of the proceeds were allegedly used to purchase high-end vehicles, but police say it remains unclear what much of the money was used for.

“When money is being laundered in the U.S. and we don’t know where it’s going, obviously, that’s one of the things we’re going to look into: Terrorism,” Harrington said.

Henrico County Police started looking into cigarette trafficking in late 2015 because they found that it was related to a number of robberies, shootings, carjackings and burglaries, police said.

Of the 43 suspects indicted, 19 have been arrested. The rest remain at large.