More than 3,300 US military service members, dependents, and civilians employed by the Department of Defense were reportedly compromised due to a transitional cybercrime ring that was created to defraud them out of millions in military benefits coming from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the DoD. A former civilian medical records technician and administrator who worked for the US Army was one of the major leaders at the center of the scheme, and allegedly stole personally identifiable information that was used to fraudulently claim DoD and VA benefits. The campaign particularly targeted disabled veterans.
The former medical records technician, Fredrick Brown, was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison last week after admitting to stealing the PII of thousands of people between July 2015 and September 2015, according to court documents. As a records technician, Brown was able to access a military electronic health records database. Brown has admitted to taking screenshots of Social Security numbers, military ID numbers, dates of birth, and contact information from the database. The information was then forwarded to a Phillippines based-partner named Roberty Wayne Boling. Boling and his associates then used the data to steal millions of dollars in medical benefits from the veterans and their families.
Read More: Transnational Fraud Ring Bilks U.S. Military Service Members Out of Millions
