Military ID Cards, Equipment Stolen From Base

Military identification cards and the equipment used to create them have been stolen from the Army’s personnel office at Ft. Meade in Maryland, investigators and military sources said Friday.

The equipment could create bogus cards that would be approved by the gatehouses of military bases around the world. In the past, blank ID cards stolen from military bases have been used in rings that cashed stolen checks at military bases.

The missing equipment includes a mug-shot camera, a box of 200 blank ID cards, a laminating machine and a device that imprints a three-dimensional hologram on the laminated card--all that is needed to create a legitimate ID that could give the user access to unrestricted areas of military installations.

The theft occurred earlier this month at the Army base off the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, which is home to the National Security Agency and other, smaller government and Army tenants.

Word of the missing identification cards and equipment comes on the heels of the recent theft of 50,000 rounds of ammunition from the top-secret NSA.

The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command in Washington confirmed Friday that it is “investigating the recent theft of equipment used to process military identification cards,” said Ken Miller, a spokesman for the command. Investigators declined to provide more details.