ID THIEF HAS PARAMEDIC LIVING UNDER A CLOUD

ID thief has paramedic living under a cloud
Karyn Maughan February 26 2007 at 05:03AM
Paramedic Joseph Sithole is fighting to get his life back after falling victim to identity theft - a crime phenomenon that has exploded in South Africa.Sithole was shocked when he received a tax bill for a construction job he knew nothing about and subsequently discovered that his identity had been taken over and used to secure employment, bank accounts and credit for a Mozambican national.And the 27-year-old is only one of thousands of South Africans who have experienced a similar fate.Stolen identities are making fortunes for syndicates who, with the help of corrupt Home Affairs officials, create fraudulent ID documents, and enable criminal groups to fraudulently purchase luxury cars, secure loans and run so-called "deposit scams".
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'I am very angry'Home Affairs Deputy Minister Malusi Gigaba recently revealed that more than 160 department officials had been dismissed after being found guilty of corruption, with a further 600 cases being investigated by the department's counter-corruption unit. Another 200 employees were facing disciplinary action for misconduct ranging from the fraudulent issuing of IDs and birth certificates to the illegal issuing of work permits.Finance Minister Trevor Manuel last week also allocated R900-million to Home Affairs to bolster its "turnaround strategy". This includes a commitment to fight corruption and fraud, particularly fraudulent marriages and ID documents. But the plans offer no comfort to Sithole."I am very angry," Sithole said, revealing that he had personally used the tax details supplied to him by the revenue services to track down the man who had taken his identity.
'I'm living under a shadow'"I went to the construction company (PJ Construction Limited) and showed them my identity document. They then showed a copy of another identity document, with my name and identity number on it, that had been certified by the South African Police. "Only the photograph and issuing date were different."Peter Becker, the owner of PJ Construction, said Sithole's impersonator, a Mozambican, had produced the ID document after Becker told him he could not employ him if he did not have proper documentation."He had called himself Mathang, but, after he got the ID, he told me that Sithole was his real name. I believed him because his documents looked proper," Becker said.Sithole's impersonator had left his company last year and was now hawking clothes in the Vereeniging area, Becker added. He also revealed that it was he who had filed the IRP5 documents that resulted in the real Sithole facing a R4 300 tax bill - which the paramedic avoided by proving his employment with the city of Johannesburg."I am living in fear that this man is going to get loans under my name... I'm living under a shadow," Sithole said.Pat Cunningham of South African Fraud Prevention Services (SAFPS), whose clients include major banks, furniture and supermarket retailers, micro lenders and motor finance corporations, says Sithole's story was "sadly not even a blip on the radar"."This type of ID theft is growing exponentially and it is terribly traumatic for the people who experience it. We often have people phoning us in tears because they feel violated by what has happened to them," he said.According to Cunningham, the not-profit SAFPS organisation had prevented ID fraud of R801-million in 2006 alone - and had already stopped identity fraud transactions of R135-million since January 1.According to the US Federal authorities, it takes 500 days for an identity theft victim to get his "own" identity back. Delegates at a conference hosted by PriceWaterhouse-Coopers last year were told that white-collar crime was costing the economy an estimated R80 billion, with more than 40 000 cases a year reported. The claim was backed up by the Consumer Profile Bureau and a report from Alexander Forbes Risk and Insurance Services. The SAFPS has recorded a recent explosion in the growth of identity fraud syndicates involving groups of local and international fraudsters."We register between five and six of these syndicates on our systems every day and they are becoming more and more sophisticated."The cost to the economy is huge... and it is trickling down to law-abiding bank customers and consumers," Cunningham said.Cunningham stressed that the Home Affairs Department "urgently" needed to address the type of identity documents, which he describes as "very easy to forge", and corruption problems within its own ranks.Cleo Mosana, spokesperson for Minister of Home Affairs Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, disputed the billion rand costs attached to identity fraud. "So far, no one has been able to provide us with a definite breakdown of the money involved... there are no proven statistics attached to this." She stressed that the department took corruption seriously but that its anti-corruption efforts were only one part of its turnaround strategy. Asked about a date for the roll-out of its proposed new "smart card" ID cards - said to be more difficult to forge - Mosana said the department was "in the process" of doing so.