Diego Garcia, a 34-year-old teaching assistant in the Romance Languages Department was arraigned Jan. 19 and charged with three counts of identity theft.

Garcia is suspected of using an e-mailing tactic known as "phishing" to gain personal information from fellow colleagues and students at the University of Cincinnati, according to UC police.

Police suspect that after he obtained the information, he then used it to set up fraudulent PayPal and credit card accounts, making purchases online and having the products delivered to a university mailbox.

Investigators are currently in the process of calculating the sum of the items purchased.

"The first amount we came up with was about $6,500, and is continuing to go up, exceeding $10,000, but we still aren't certain of the final number," said Karen Patterson, captain of the UC Police Department.

The investigation began in November 2006, when Kevin McLaughlin, UC's director of Information Security, informed UCPD that his department had caught wind of what was happening. "We did all we could do from our standpoint, then handed it over to the police," McLaughlin said.

"Catching him wasn't easy," Patterson said, "there was a lot of 'behind the scenes' work in this case, we couldn't apprehend him until we had some hard evidence against him, an element that makes these identity theft cases extremely frustrating."

Police were eventually able to make the arrest after seeing video evidence of Garcia picking up a package.

After the initial arrest, Garcia was hesitant to admit anything until the evidence was brought out against him. "Once he realized he was caught, he became extremely cooperative," Patterson said.

There has been an increase in data theft from the university staff and students in recent years, prompting the change in UC staff and student identification numbers from Social Security to the new 'M' numbers, McLaughlin said.

"We decided to use a number that's not anything 'super secret,' but would only stay with a person for their UC career, nothing more," McLaughlin said, "I believe this system will be more effective at protecting people's personal information."

Patterson emphasized the importance of being aware of identity theft. "I hope people read this and understand that this is becoming a serious problem in our society, and everyone needs to become more cautious when dealing with their personal information," Patterson said. "Garcia exploited those who were closest to him, which further proves that criminals don't really stand out from others, because everyone we talked to spoke so highly of him, making this case particularly difficult."

Jessica Martin, who identified herself as a student victim in the case, was distraught about the crime. "I just felt like everyone should know about something like this, because it should be taken seriously," Martin said. "I just felt as if it were something personal, I was shocked that a teacher would do such a thing."

In April 2006, a police report was filed stating that two suspects had forced a man to make a phone call, and then took something from an office in Old Chem. Recently, the case was ruled unfounded due to a confession by Garcia that he had filed the police report in an attempt to cover up his tracks, police said.

"This really bothered me," Patterson said, "A report of that nature shakes the entire campus up. Putting students and faculty in a panic over a false report is just a blatant disregard for the safety of the university and community as a whole."

Garcia's future at the university is uncertain and will be determined by UC's Office of Judicial Affairs.

Source