Archive for the ‘Criminal Background Check’ Category

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A Clerical Error Landed Kathleen Casey on the Streets

By Dawn in Background Checks, court cases, Criminal Background Check, Criminal Records, legal papers, MSI Detective Services, Police Records, Private Investigator at December 21st, 2011 | No comments

 

 

 

 

 

If you are an employer needing background checks performed on prospective employees, MSI Detective Services offers this service. Mistakes won’t be make like the ones you will read about in this story because we have the means to accurately check and cross-check information. For example, in the first story, our staff would have noticed that the birth date did not match the age of the individual, and even if it did, one of our Private Investigators would have pulled the police report to ensure they had the right person. Employers should also know that they are required by law to inform job applicants when they have been rejected because of negative information in a background check. This gives the applicant an opportunity to clear up any mis-information. So, unless you want a lawsuit on your hands, you are advised to do a proper background check and follow the law.

Out of work two years, her unemployment benefits exhausted, in danger of losing her apartment, Casey applied for a job in the pharmacy of a Boston drugstore. She was offered $11 an hour. All she had to do was pass a background check.

It turned up a 14-count criminal indictment. Kathleen Casey had been charged with larceny in a scam against an elderly man and woman that involved forged checks and fake credit cards.

There was one technicality: The company that ran the background check, First Advantage, had the wrong woman. The rap sheet belonged to Kathleen A. Casey, who lived in another town nearby and was 18 years younger.

Kathleen Ann Casey, would-be pharmacy technician, was clean.

“It knocked my legs out from under me,” she says.

The business of background checks is booming. Employers spend at least $2 billion a year to look into the pasts of their prospective employees. They want to make sure they’re not hiring a thief, or worse.

But it is a system weakened by the conversion to digital files and compromised by the welter of private companies that profit by amassing public records and selling them to employers. These flaws have devastating consequences. Read the full article »

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More Than 100 Arrested in Massive NYC Theft Ring

By Dawn in Crime, Criminal Background Check, Electronic Fraud, Investigations, MSI Detective Services, Private Investigator, Theft Investigations at October 11th, 2011 | No comments

Bank tellers, restaurant workers and other service employees in New York lifted credit card data from residents and foreign tourists as part of an identity theft ring that stretched to China, Europe and the Middle East and victimized thousands.

In total, 111 people were arrested and more than 85 are in custody; the others are still being sought. Five separate criminal enterprises operating out of Queens were dismantled. They were hit with hundreds of charges, said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, calling it the largest fraud case he’d ever seen in his two decades in office.

At least three bank workers, retail employees and restaurant workers would steal credit card numbers in a process known as skimming, in which workers take information from when a card is swiped for payment and illegally sell the credit card numbers. Different members of the criminal enterprise would steal card information online. This form of theft has become quite common.

I wonder if thorough background checks were performed before these employees were hired. Often, in these type of cases, employers learn (after it’s too late) employees had a criminal background.

The numbers were then given to teams of manufacturers, who would forge Visas, MasterCards, Discover and American Express cards. Realistic identifications were made with the stolen data. Read the full article »

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Solyndra Leaders Invoke 5th Amendment at Hearing

By Dawn in Criminal Background Check, due diligence, Interrogation, Investigations, legal papers, MSI Detective Services, Politics at September 29th, 2011 | No comments

Top executives from a bankrupt California solar energy company declined to testify before a congressional hearing investigating their half-billion dollar government loan. Solyndra Inc. CEO Brian Harrison and the company’s chief financial officer, Bill Stover, both invoked their Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify to avoid self-incrimination.

Solyndra Inc. received a $528 million loan from the Energy Department in 2009.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., compared the Solyndra loan to the Great Train Robbery in England in the 1960s. Upton faulted the Obama administration for its role in the loan, saying at a minimum the Energy Department did not complete due diligence on the company, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the years before the loan was approved. He called the loan “reckless use of taxpayer dollars on a company that was known to pose serious risks before a single dime went out the door.”

One does wonder why due diligence is often over-looked when “someone else’s money” is being spent – in this case it’s our tax dollars. I wonder if background checks, investigation of past fraud practices, or interrogatory questions would be asked if this were a private sector transaction. Not to say those oversights never occur, but they are less likely because it’s an investors money or a company’s money being spent and their money is not being backed by the government, as is the case in this deal. Committee leaders said the administration may have violated the law when it restructured Solyndra’s loan in February in such a way that private investors moved ahead of taxpayers for repayment in case of default. The economic stimulus law provides for taxpayers to be ahead of other creditors in the event of bankruptcy or default.

Hiring a private investigative firm wouldn’t take much effort, such as MSI Detective Services. Our investigative services could have handled the necessary due diligence through background checks, past fraud, interviews, etc.
Read full story@ msnbc

 

 

 

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Ex-inmate attempts to sneak into California Prison

By alisa in Crime, Criminal Background Check, Criminal Records at August 13th, 2011 | No comments

On Thursday, thermal imaging cameras of the New Folsom State Prison recorded a parolee trying to sneak in.

Marvin Lane Ussery, 48, was arrested on suspicion of being a felon on prison grounds. He had served time at New Folsom Prison (aka California State Prison Sacramento) for robbery. He violated his parole which was issued in 2009.

Ussery’s bicycle was parked near where he hopped the prison fence, prison officials said. Thirty corrections officers combed the prison yard for hidden contraband that the ex-inmate may have been trying to sneak in. Read the full article »

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