(reopens FGN 3)

According to documents filed in the case, the defendants and their conspirators stole hundreds of millions of dollars through a scheme repeated thousands of times to create more than 7,000 false identities and fraudulently obtain tens of thousands of credit cards. The defendants also moved millions of dollars through accounts under their control and wired millions of dollars overseas. An analysis of 169 bank accounts, sham companies and complicit businesses identified USD 60 million in proceeds that flowed through the accounts. The conspirators wired millions of dollars to Pakistan, India, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Romania, China and Japan. Federal authorities estimate that confirmed losses from the scheme could exceed USD 200 million. The scheme involved a three-step process in which the defendants would make up a false identity by creating fraudulent identification documents and a fraudulent credit profile with the major credit bureaus. They woud then "pump up" the credit of the false identity by providing fake information about that identity's creditworthiness to the credit bureaus, which would believe the furnished information to be accurate. The defendants would also "run up" large loans using the false identity but would never repay the loans. The defendants created dozens of sham companies that did little or no legitimate business, obtained credit card terminals for the companies and then ran up charges on the fraud cards. The sham companies also served as "furnishers", providing the credit bureaus with false information about the credit history of numerous false identities of people who purportedly worked at or owned the sham companies. Records with the New York and New Jersey Departments of Labor reveal that many of the defendants have no reported legitimate employment in the last five years. They used the proceeds of the criminal enterprise to buy luxury automobiles, electronics, spa treatments, expensive clothing and millions of dollars in gold besides stockpiling large sums of cash.