IRVINE — UC Irvine police detectives, along with Dallas County district attorney investigators and Fort Worth police officers arrested a suspect July 8 in UCI’s identity theft case.
Michael Tyrone Thomas, 27, was taken into custody at his Fort Worth residence based on an arrest warrant for violation of one count of fraudulent use of identifying information in conjunction with the identity thefts involving UCI graduate and medical students. Thomas was transported and booked into the Dallas County Jail with bail set at $300,000.
UCI Police Department Sgts. Tony Frisbee and Shaun Devlin and Cpl. Caroline Altamirano worked closely with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office for several months investigating the theft of personal information from the Student Resources Department of United Healthcare in Dallas. Thomas allegedly stole the information while he was employed at Student Resources, and he used some of it to file fraudulent income tax returns and obtain refund checks.
UCI detectives continue working on the case, and they anticipate additional arrest warrants will be issued. The Internal Revenue Service also is investigating tax fraud aspects of this case.
UCI became aware of the identity theft in March when students began reporting the problem to the university. When some students attempted to file their federal tax returns, the IRS informed them that a return already had been submitted using their Social Security number. UCI police have received 163 identity theft reports.
About the University of California, Irvine: The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 27,000 undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 2,000 faculty members. The third-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3.6 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.
News Radio: UCI maintains on campus an ISDN line for conducting interviews with its faculty and experts. The use of this line is available free-of-charge to radio news programs/stations who wish to interview UCI faculty and experts. Use of the ISDN line is subject to availability and approval by the university.
UCI maintains an online directory of faculty available as experts to the media. To access, visit www.today.uci.edu/experts. For UCI breaking news, visit www.zotwire.uci.edu.