11 People Charged In TJX Identity Theft Case of 45+ Million Personal Identities

11 people, including even a confidential informant working for the Secret Service, were charged in connection with a case involving illegally tapping into the wireless payment processing systems of the following retail outlets:

• TJX (TJ Max)
• OfficeMax
• Boston Market
• Barnes & Noble
• Sport’s Authority
• DSW
• Forever 21
• BJ’s Wholesale Club

Besides tapping into the wireless networks of these major retailers, the thieves were successful in setting up programs that captured card numbers, passwords and account information from a massive amount of unsuspecting consumers.

While TJX admitted to 45 million consumers were negatively impacted from the two year period the identity thieves had unauthorized access to their payment processing data, court documents revealed the real estimate was closer to 100 million consumers confidential data was compromised based on depositions by Visa and Mastercard.

The ring leader, a Miami man who was also the confidential informant for the Secret Service, turned out to be a double agent who had been providing criminal’s information about ongoing investigations and tipping off associates.

With the massive amount of credit account access information stolen and provided to worldwide identity thieves, this case involving TJX has a big impact in our personal identity and financial safety.