Two Maryland women have been charged with bilking many Atlanta-area cops out of significant amounts of personal information.
The women, Cintia Ximena Pedone-Allou and Dawnetta Patrice Underwood, were arrested after visiting several police precincts around Atlanta and posing as insurance company representatives, according to a report from the
Associated Press. They ran a detailed scheme to gain access to the stations' inner workings and, once in, convinced at least 39 officers and other employees to turn over a wealth of personal information on bogus application forms.
Authorities also believe they targeted transit police and fire stations for this
identity theft scheme as well, the report said.
"Obviously, it's pretty bold to go into a police precinct and target police officers for this," Sgt. Paul Cooper told the news agency. "Anybody can be fooled, and this is a good example. If they can get us, they can get anybody."
Adam Levin, the chairman of Identity Theft 911, writes regularly about the threats consumers face from scammers both in the real world and online.
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