INS Security Officer Indicted on Loan Fraud Charges : Law: Official at Laguna Niguel office accused of using alias and false Social Security number on application with a Utah bank.

A top security officer for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service’s western region has been indicted on federal bank loan fraud charges, officials confirmed Tuesday.

John Wolfe, 50, an Orange County resident, was handcuffed in front of co-workers Aug. 17 at the INS regional office in Laguna Niguel and led away by FBI agents, authorities said.

The indictment, handed down by a federal grand jury in Salt Lake City on Aug. 5, named Carl L. Johnson, an alias used by Wolfe, according to the FBI.

Wolfe, who was freed on a $30,000 bond, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

According to the indictment, Wolfe on July 29 filed a false loan application with American Investment Bank in Salt Lake City. In the loan application, Wolfe, using the name Carl L. Johnson, falsified his Social Security number and job description, which he gave as “staff attorney/special agent.”

“As Carl L. Johnson well knew,” the indictment stated, “that was not his Social Security account number and he was not so employed.”

It’s a felony under federal law to knowingly make false statements when applying for a loan at a federally insured bank.

Gary Morley, FBI special agent in Santa Ana, said officials had determined that Wolfe also made loan queries to Citibank and Wells Fargo Bank. But Morley didn’t know the outcome of those applications.

“The charges involved do not relate to Mr. Wolfe’s work for the INS,” said agency spokeswoman Virginia Kice. She said Wolfe had been employed since the summer of 1988 and, until his arrest on Aug. 17, was serving as the agency’s acting regional security officer because of an unfilled vacancy.

Wolfe has been put on paid leave, Kice said, “pending the outcome of this matter.”