A Palisades Park woman who was one of 53 suspects arrested in a massive identity-theft and bank-fraud ring last year pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy to produce phony identification documents, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.
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Sung-Sil Joh, 47, also pleaded guilty in federal court in Newark to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting financial institutions, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, authorities said.
Joh was arrested in September 2010 when authorities broke up an identity-theft and bank-fraud ring allegedly run by Sang-Hyun “Jimmy” Park, 44, of Palisades Park.
The ring allegedly obtained Social Security cards beginning with “586.” Cards with that prefix were issued legitimately in the 1990s to Chinese citizens who came to work in American territories such as American Samoa, Guam and Saipan.
The ring engaged in the fraudulent “buildup” of credit scores associated with the Chinese identities, allegedly by adding the identities as authorized users to the credit card accounts of various co-conspirators who received a fee, authorities said. After the credit scores were built up, ring members used them to open bank accounts and obtain credit cards that were then used to commit fraud, authorities said.
Joh admitted she served as an intermediary between the Park enterprise and various “build-up” teams. She admitted providing cash, Social Security numbers, names and dates of birth to co-conspirators who used them to establish good credit for the fraudulent identities so they could used to commit fraud.
The scheme by the Park enterprise cost banks and credit cards companies more than $4 million in losses, authorities said.
Joh is free on $250,000 bail. She faces up to 37 years in prison and fines totaling $1.2 million when she is sentenced Feb.16.
The multi-agency investigation was triggered by a May 2008 triple murder in Tenafly, authorities said. Kang-Hyuk Choi, 35, of Valley Stream, N.Y., Choi pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and criminal weapons possession, admitting that he murdered an associate, Han Kim, and two of Kim’s family members in a dispute over commissions from an identity-theft and bank-card scheme.
