By Paul Shukovsky, The Seattle Post
Secret Service agents and detectives from the Lynnwood Police Department and the King County Sheriff’s Office broke up an identity-theft ring during the weekend that was believed responsible for numerous burglaries and car break-ins in King and south Snohomish counties.
A federal grand jury charged nine people in an 11-count indictment with conspiracy to commit bank fraud. If convicted, they would face up to 30 years in prison. Three of the suspects appeared in U.S. District Court yesterday, and the rest are in custody with appearances pending.
The alleged ringleader, Warren Armstead, 49, of the Seattle area “recruited drug addicts and homeless individuals” to steal credit cards, checks, medical insurance cards and other IDs from homes, vehicles and from the desks of trusting office workers, according to the indictment and Lynnwood police Detective Doug Teachworth.
Teachworth said yesterday that he first arrested Armstead in February 2002 for ID theft and possession of stolen credit cards. Armstead was convicted last year in Snohomish County Superior Court on the charges, but failed to show up to begin his sentence. When one of Armstead’s homeless or junkie associates provided him with a package of stolen IDs, he would pay them $50, the indictment said. Armstead would pass the information to another member of the ring who would manufacture bogus Washington driver’s licenses and counterfeit checks, according to the indictment and Teachworth.
Then members of the ring would take the credit cards and phony IDs into retail stores and “buy thousands of dollars of merchandise,” Teachworth said. Sometimes they would keep the goods; sometimes they would return for a cash refund, he said.
The ring was responsible for an outbreak of burglaries in Shoreline last summer and has committed burglaries and car break-ins as far south as Portland, Teachworth said.