Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro announced the indictment Tuesday of what he said were the remaining members of a well-organized and sophisticated identity theft ring responsible for at least half of the ID theft complaints on Oahu last year.
An Oahu grand jury returned an indictment charging Gerald N. Waialae II, Kimberly K. Nabarro, Randall D. Wallace, Christopher A. Cole, Rachel M. Parker, Alana L. Eskildson, Clyde P. Lee, Walter B. Cascayan and Scott W. Brunson on 154 counts of identity theft and related crimes.
Kaneshiro said the nine defendants and five others, who were charged earlier this year, victimized at least 256 Hawaii residents from May 1, 2010, to Jan. 27, stealing an estimated $218,500.
Oahu grand juries charged Pyong "Peter" Pak, Al Alvarez, Arnold Agtang, Jefferson Ganado and Randy Garcia in separate indictments. Pak is awaiting trial in state court on 78 identity theft and related charges. The others have pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to 10-year prison terms.
Kaneshiro said Waialae and Pak are the leaders of the ring that obtained their victims’ personal information by breaking into their cars, homes and places of work, stealing their mail and rummaging through their trash.
"They use it to commit theft and other crimes. They create fake identification cards, counterfeit checks and use that to steal from banks and businesses," Kaneshiro said.
He also said the thieves used their victims’ Social Security numbers to open credit card accounts in their names.
The city prosecutor, Honolulu Police Department, state Department of Public Safety and its Sheriff Division, the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement participated in the 13-month investigation of the theft ring, said Chris Van Marter, head of Kaneshiro’s White Collar Crime Unit.
Pak, a Korean national, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2002 on three separate cases involving credit card fraud, theft, forgery and computer fraud. But because the judge failed to inform him that pleading no contest or guilty to felony crimes could result in his deportation, Pak was later allowed to withdraw his no-contest pleas.
After trial in 2006 for one of the cases ended with a hung jury, the city prosecutor, which had two cases against Pak, and the state attorney general, which had the other one, made a deal with Pak to agree to a five-year probation sentence in return for his guilty pleas. The city prosecutor also agreed to drop one of the cases.
As part of the deal, Kaneshiro said the parties also agreed not to seek Pak’s deportation.
