Man Arrested at Dealership in Alleged Identity Theft

In a rare arrest, authorities apprehended a man believed to be an identity thief who went on shopping sprees around Los Angeles County, police said Wednesday.

Thomas M. Little, 51, allegedly bought $13,000 worth of cell phones, trendy clothing and other merchandise on credit before a suspicious clerk discovered that he was using the identity of another man, said LAPD Det. Ken Belt.

Little, of Los Angeles, was booked Tuesday on suspicion of attempted grand theft and is being held at Van Nuys jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Released from prison a few months ago after serving time for bank robbery, he is expected to be arraigned today. He will probably face charges that include identity theft, said Belt, a supervisor of the Consolidated Effort to Combat Auto Theft, a multi-agency unit that includes investigators from the California Highway Patrol and Department of Motor Vehicles.

Typically, identity theft cases--which usually involve impostors using the names and Social Security numbers of others to obtain credit or loans--remain unsolved because they are hard to investigate, experts said.

Victims often don’t discover and report the crimes until months or years after the impostor has struck, and by then the trail has gone cold. Cooperation among police agencies is needed to investigate crimes committed by a thief who may operate in different jurisdictions.

The LAPD Financial Crimes Division has estimated that fewer than 1% of their identity theft cases are solved.

Little was trying to buy two personal watercraft and a boat trailer, for a total price of $20,000, from Honda of North Hollywood, Belt said. To buy on credit, he allegedly used the Social Security number of another man and a phony driver’s license bearing his photo with the other man’s name.

That man--Mark Nystrom of San Jose--had suspected he was an identity theft victim when he received an unsolicited credit card from a department store. Earlier this month, the 42-year-old telecommunications engineer called the three main credit reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian and Trans Union, to put a “fraud alert” on his files, requiring businesses to call him before issuing new credit.

On Tuesday, the Honda of North Hollywood employee assisting Little noticed the flag on Nystrom’s file and saw that a lot of credit had been issued under Nystrom’s name.

When Little left the store temporarily, the employee called Nystrom’s contact number in his credit file and discovered that the real Nystrom was at work hundreds of miles away, Belt said.

The employee immediately called investigators he knew from the multi-agency unit, Belt said. Police arrived promptly and arrested Little when he returned.

They then discovered that he had allegedly bought, all on credit, $3,000 in cell phones through mail order and had spent $5,000 at Bloomingdale’s in Century City and $5,000 at two Banana Republic stores, in Century City and at the Beverly Center. Little also allegedly had put in credit applications to buy a car at Los Angeles County dealerships, investigators said.

“We caught this right at the time he was actually using the fraudulently obtained identification,” Belt said.

Police recommend that--before discarding any document that bears your name or other identification, such as Social Security or bank account number--you shred it. Make sure your mailbox is secure, Belt said, because thieves often take pre-approved credit cards or blank checks. Finally, if you suspect you’re a victim of identity theft, notify the three credit reporting bureaus immediately.

“You think it can never happen to you,” Nystrom said. “I don’t have a clue as to how [the thief] got my information.”