Suspect in massive theft is free

Atlanta man out on bond may have bilked institutions for millions.

Police suspect an Atlanta man of wide-ranging identity theft that has bilked banks, car dealerships, furniture stores and the federal government of millions of dollars.

And they fear he’ll run away to do it again. He’s faced similar charges often before.

Erkes Antwon Green, 28, was released from the DeKalb jail March 3 on $105,000 bond despite evidence that he filed or tried to file income tax returns in the name of 150 or more people, mostly from Georgia and Florida.

Detective Ken Stapler with the Atlanta Police Department’s major fraud unit had arrested him Feb. 28 on a charge of bank fraud. Stapler alleged that Green opened a SunTrust bank account online using a stolen ID, deposited a stolen check for $46,000 and later tried to make ATM withdrawals.

When police tracked Green to his high-end east Atlanta apartment using clues collected from the bank, “I discovered a file cabinet and I counted at least 142 files that had people’s names, dates of birth and Social Security numbers,” Stapler said. “He’s doing tax returns with each of these names.”

Investigators discovered more in Green’s home.

“While we’re in the apartment, we discover that he’s furnished the whole apartment using stolen identities,” Stapler said. “The vehicle he was driving when we located him is a 2010 Mercedes E-550 that he bought with a stolen identity.

And that victim lives here in Atlanta.”

That $60,000 car was the second one Green had bought in somebody else’s name in recent years, police say. One car was allegedly bought using ID information of Channel 2 Action News traffic reporter Mark Arum, who works for the AJC’s parent company, Cox

Media Group.

Arum later learned his name was among the files Green had allegedly been using to file false tax returns.

Stapler said Green averaged between $8,000 and $9,000 in tax refunds, and “almost every identity that I’ve found so far, I can see where he’s filed tax returns. If he’s got a person’s name, birth date and Social Security number, he can make up the rest. He can put in any number he wants and get a refund.”

Stapler is looking to bring more charges against Green in DeKalb and in Fulton County, as well as escalating the case to the federal level by meeting with IRS investigators next week.

But, “It appears we’re going to have to find him all over again when I get ready to arrest him for the Fulton County cases.”

Arum was not optimistic about that.

“Oh, he’s gone,” he said. “I don’t feel violated ... just annoyed. To this day, I still get calls from debt collectors wanting payment for that car, even though that’s all been resolved through the credit agencies.”

Green, a Florida native and former waiter, had been arrested at least eight times between 2002 and 2006 in communities along Florida’s Atlantic coastline on charges related to larceny, credit card fraud and ID theft, according to records.

In most cases, he either pleaded guilty or no contest, receiving probation, a suspended sentence or jail terms less than six months.

In 2008, he pleaded guilty in DeKalb County to identity fraud and theft by taking, and received a 10-year sentence for which he was required to serve two years and the remainder on probation, according to the DeKalb District Attorney’s Office, where the case is under investigation.

Investigators believe Green is part of a network of ID thieves who have swiped pertinent personal information from hundreds of unsuspecting people across the country using something known as a keystroke grabber – a piece of technology that can go unseen for months – to siphon information from victims’ personal accounts.

“You plug this thing into the back of a computer where the USB cable would go,” Stapler said. “He can leave it there for as long as he wants, and nobody’s going know unless they look on the back of their computer.”

During the raid of Green’s apartment, police found printed emails with hundreds of pieces of stolen personal identification information.

“A lot of times, what these people do is get hired on with a temp agency,” Stapler said. “A temp agency may work in an office building cleaning up after hours.” Once one of the ID thieves “gets in the door, he’s got access to those computers. Anytime nobody is looking, he could put the keystroke grabber on.”