stuff
Stuff like this could never happen with the wealth of new secure databases the government is creating now could it?
Bureaucrat behind bars for creating 1,400 fake kids
A civil servant and his accomplice are both behind bars today after being found guilty of a massive identity and tax credit fraud. John Brian Agdomar, 42, of Hackney, East London, got four and a half years for tax credit fraud, relating to the creation of identities for 1,400 imaginary children and the claiming of £1.2m in tax …
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So 2 people could do this?
Out identity safe in their hands? I think not.
A National ID Card ...
... would have prevented this. Because there's no way anyone in the National ID Card Registration Office would do anything similar and abuse their position of power to create false National ID Cards, is there. Absolutely not, it's unthinkable.
"Secure by design"
Good to know that our Id cards and Child Protection databases will be equally secure by design.
Nothing to worry about there then.
No, no, no
Civil Servants in the UK do not go to jail. They just pay back what they think is a fair amount, say they didn't know they broke any rules and that's it.
Just ask any MP!
Big database + poor security = Idendity theft heaven.
I like the comment on the HMRC site "He [Agdomar] is thought to have illegally accessed more than 2,500 customer accounts. ". I take it they have informed these 2,500 "customers" and notified them that their identities are at risk?
Story has a Nigerian connection!
Olanekan Omatayo Ogunmekan, now theres name I was wondering about.
After a very quick look on the net it turns out he is a Nigerian citizen and the courts state he will be deported once his sentence is done.
Yeah I know, how very Politically incorrect of me *sigh!* to point that out. But what with the 419 scams that country is famous for you can't say that anyone is surprised.
http://www.wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/0/48FB7517B535849E80257635005B107C?OpenDocument
Huh?
"Agdomar was also charged with abusing his position of trust within the civil service."
Position of /what/ in the Civil Service? That's a bit of a non sequitur....
He just got a bit confused
He though they said "wont somebody think UP the children" and so he did just that
Now, if we'd had the national ID database...
...and each of those "virtual" kids had had their own virtual biometric card...
...then they would have existed for real, and both of these guys would have been innocent. Reality would then need to be banged up for not matching the database.
Ah, if they'd only waited a few years they might have gotten away with it...
419 ?
Even the boys from Lagos are off-shoring these days it seems.
They asked...
..."Won't somebody think of the children???" - So he did :-P
Pfft this is nothing
In September 2001, the Democratic Republic of the Congo discovered that it had 21,652 civil servants on its payroll who do not exist.
Source: Todays QI Fact of the day on qi.com
Hmmm...
So, since he "abused his position of trust," does this mean that he'll go on the protective services database and never be allowed to work with imaginary children again?
hmmmm
1.2m = 4 years
yet you would get the same for 2 burglaries.
what an odd system.
i would definately consider a scam to net 1.2 if only 4 years sentence!
btw - thanks for the qi website. one of my fave programs and have just been reading the book :)
Overpayments
Won't they have to pay back the overpayment which is built into the system too?
FAST - Federation Against Stupid Twits.
I'd live in prison for a salary of 300K per year.
Crime isn't supposed to pay.
I used to know
I used to know a family who had 17 (or was it 19?) children, for the benefits. They'd be pretty sick at knowing how much money could be had for 1400 *imaginary* children. No nappies! No schooling! No having all the local petty crime blamed on them!
Reminds me of...
The story I heard about the IT guy at the MOD who created on the accounting system a whole legion of imaginary soldiers so that he could siphon off their wages into bank accounts he controlled.
After keeping up the pretense by placing orders on the accounting system for all the requisite kit, rations, guns and munitions that the real troops would have required he finally came unstuck when after a time he decided to close the scam down before anyone noticed.
There was unfortunately the problem of what to do with the 60 imaginary soldiers. What was he to do? He considered having them all killed in service or deserting on mass but realizing this would surely draw attention he apparently decided to give himself up and confessed to the racket.
It takes just two perps to rake in 1.2 million
Imagine a concerted effort across a national ID database....
Um...
He would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for those pesky kids
@TheWhiteIdea
You owe me a new keyboard, this one's got coffee all over it now!
In related news ...
Shawn Kemp could not be reached for comment.
BTW, instead of prison, could the idiot be sentenced to ten years of hard labor in a daycare facility? Let the punishment fit the crime, I say. (Or would that be considered cruel and unusual?)
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