According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Sacramento, a former DMV employee with access to computer records that included personal information used it to steal victims’ identities and open phony bank accounts. Sarah Laray Sandoval, 39, is the subject on an ongoing federal bribery probe into the misuse of department computer files and has been accused of using driver’s license records in an elaborate mail and identity theft case. Anthony Andrew Zamarron, 37, who shares the same address as Sandoval, is also named in the complaint. The complaint claims that the two of them conspired with others to use mail stolen from individuals, as well as mail stolen from a church, to target “certain postal customers and property theft victims for identity theft.”
According to the complaint, Sandoval, with help from Zamarron, would use DMV computers to research and obtain confidential personal information about mail theft victims, then open credit card or bank accounts posing as the victims. The complaint lists a series of fraudulent transactions such as a $3,250 line of credit in the name of one mail theft victim and a $15,000 line of credit at Wells Fargo Bank opened in the name of another victim. The court records show that the violations occurred from December 2016 through early June 2017 and resulted in 18 counts against the pair that include possession of stolen mail, bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. We will have to wait and see if the pair is convicted and if the DMV will take steps to prevent any similar issues in the future.
