Two charged with stealing celebrity ID's off Net

In this story: Accused of complex e-mail scheme Some celebrities unaware, unavailable RELATED STORIES, SITES

From Steve Young
CNNfn Correspondent

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two Brooklyn men have been charged with using the Internet to scoop up the identity of hundreds of America's best known celebrities, including Martha Stewart, Paul Allen, Michael Eisner and Steven Spielberg, police said.

The two men, Abraham Abdallah and Michael Pugliese, stole about $100,000 and were angling to make millions, New York Police Sgt. Andrew McGinnis told CNN. Abdallah and Pugliese have been charged with criminal possession of forged devices, stolen property and criminal impersonation.

VIDEO CNN's Kelli Arena reports on what law enforcement officials are doing to stop Internet identity theft Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

The two suspects were arrested earlier this month in a police sting, McGinnis said. They were found with about $100,000 worth of computer hardware and software, plus funds diverted from some of the celebrities.

Accused of complex e-mail scheme

The two men are accused of using a complicated e-mail scheme to obtain control of bank and credit card accounts, even information about the mother's maiden name of some of the celebrities.

The FBI, Secret Service, the U.S. Attorney and U.S. Postal Service inspectors are also investigating, although there was no confirmation whether any federal charges have been filed.

The New York Post, which broke the story, said the scheme involved attempts to divert money from such brokerages as Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. The brokerages declined to comment directly on the case.

"Merrill Lynch has extensive fraud and security control procedures in place to safe guard our clients and proprietary information. When we detect potential abuses we take appropriate action, including reporting the conduct to the proper authorities," the brokerage said in a statement.

Some celebrities unaware, unavailable

A spokesman for Hollywood executive David Geffen, who was named in the newspaper story, told CNN that Geffen has not been swindled.

A spokesman for Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, who also was named in the story, said, "We are unaware of any fraudulent use of Ted Turner's credit cards or bank statements."

Other named celebrities who have not commented or could not be reached include Allen, Eisner, Stewart, George Soros, Ross Perot, Oprah Winfrey, Barry Diller and Michael Bloomberg.

The case might mark the largest number of celebrities said to have been the victims of an Internet scam. However, there have been other cases in which hundreds of thousands of credit cards and identities have been fraudulently obtained using the Internet.

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Merrill Lynch
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