A couple of Detroit men are accused of using fake IDs to buy several iPhones at an AT&T store in Granite City. They, along with a Minnesota man who accompanied them on the outing, have been charged by the Madison County State’s Attorney’s office with felony counts of forgery and identity theft.
Prosecutors are hoping to have the money they were carrying on them at the time forfeited to them, citing a provision of the Illinois Money Laundering Act that allows for such forfeitures.
Both Nikko Brown, 26, and Adrian Odum, 21, are from Detroit; a third man, Raymond E. Durr, 25, is from Oak Park, Minn., according to court records.
Brown remained in custody Monday at the Madison County Jail, in lieu of $75,000. Odum and Durr have been released.
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The trio were arrested on Christmas Eve after Granite City Police received a call from an AT&T employee informing them that someone had just tried to buy several iPhones – at $950 apiece – using a fake ID.
They arrived and detained Brown, who was found to be carrying $3,360 as well as the driver’s license of a Maryland man, according to an affidavit from Granite City police. When they got ahold of the Maryland man, he confirmed that someone had indeed stolen his identity.
Odum and Durr were arrested in a car in the parking lot. Odum was carrying $470 with him, and Durr had $1,764, according to the affidavit.
Investigators soon began to suspect that Durr was behind an earlier theft from an AT&T store in Wood River.
When Durr was arrested in the AT&T store parking lot in Granite City, police found several iPhones in the car that they determined had been taken from the Wood River AT&T, according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors filed a Request for Preliminary Review to Determine Probable Cause for Forfeiture, citing the state’s money laundering statute. Information in the document alleges that none of the three had any visible means of support and did not have a legitimate source of income that would account for so much money.
It also claims that statements made by the three suspects “were inconsistent and lacking in veracity.”
Granite City police says that after speaking with AT&T security employees, they learned that “this is a trend they have been seeing with the subjects obtaining multiple $950 phones with a stolen identity and then selling the phones to make money.”
But it’s unclear whether the use of fraudulent IDs to purchase iPhones for resale is simply a national trend or whether it has trickled down to the local level.
Sheriff’s Capt. Mike Dixon said he has yet to see the trend here locally.
“But identity theft has increased tremendously in the last five years,” he said. It’s an ever-growing burden with people buying and selling goods nationally at an exponential rate.”
The sheriff’s department encourages victims of identity theft to:
• file a police report with your local police department;
• contact the fraud department of the three major credit card bureaus – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and place an alert on your account;
• notify your bank, credit card company, utility company or any other creditor or institution that you believe may have been tampered with, or opened fraudulently;
• File a report with the Federal Trade Commission.
More information can be obtained on the Madison County Sheriff’s Department section of Madison County’s website, at www.co.madison.il.us.
