ID Theft Even Pulled Off By Inmates

ATLANTA – Is identity theft so easy to pull off that inmates can do it from inside prison? Maybe so. An inmate in a county jail in Atlanta has been charged with running an identity theft ring while in the facility. Stanley Sinkfield, who was already in Douglas County Jail for driving a stolen vehicle, was arrested along with four of his accomplices recently. They’ll face a variety of charges including identity theft, and racketeering. Sinkfield is accused of stealing people’s credit card information by calling a metro Atlanta restaurant and posing as a credit card representative, said John Smith, administrator for the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs. He used the other people’s credit card information to buy and resell items such as TVs and boots. Then, through his accomplices, Sinkfield offered to sell merchandise or pay people’s utility bills at a discount, Smith said. He put those charges on the stolen credit card numbers and kept his customers’ money. “He’s got some ingenuity. Either he was a little bit or a lot cocky,” Smith said. “There was a little bit of both there.” Police used tape-recorded phone calls Sinkfield made from the jail to gather enough evidence to arrest him. “They’re warned that their phone calls were being recorded, and then they go ahead and do things over the telephone,” Smith said.