NEW YORK - New Jersey police said Tuesday they were only in the "first phase" of an investigation that has so far uncovered the theft of data from more than 700,000 account holders held in four major US banks.
Ten people have been arrested in the scam which has impacted Bank of America, the second-largest US bank in terms of assets, Wachovia Corp., Commerce Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group Inc.
Among those arrested were bank branch officials in Hackensack, New Jersey, who allegedly sold account numbers and balances to a middleman who then sold them on at a profit to data to collection agencies.
"This is just the first phase," said Hackensack Police Chief Charles Zisa.
"Phase two is going after the more than 40 firms that solicited this information," Zisa said.
The middleman and alleged ringleader of the scam, Orazio Lembo, operated DRL Associates, which marketed itself as an investigation and collection service.
According to Zisa, Lembo would get the names and social security numbers of people sought by collection agencies. Lembo's associates would cross check the names against bank account and balance information.
Lembo would pay the operatives 10 dollars for a match and then sell the data on to the collection agencies for up to 150 dollars. Police say he operated the scam for four years.
Because many of the customers held more than one account, police believe the final number of breached accounts could exceed the one-million mark.
05/24/2005 17:17 GMT