Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in America, and the state of Arizona has the most victims in the nation with more than one in 1,000 people victimized by the crime.

While a majority of identity theft cases center around stealing personal information for profit, Graham County Attorney Kenny Angle said there is a different problem in the Gila Valley.

"One area of great concern in Graham County is that criminals are giving police the wrong name, date of birth and Social Security number," Angle said. "A criminal who provides false information to a police officer will be charged with false information. A criminal who provides false information to a police officer and who falsely signs a document, such as a criminal citation or booking documents, can be charged with forgery and taking the identity of another." Forgery and taking the identity of another person are class 4 felonies, punishable by a maximum of 3.75 years in prison.

Angle said his office will actively pursue and prosecute all people who provide law enforcement officers with false information. Photographs and fingerprints taken during the booking process are used to track these criminals down.

Even if the identity thief is arrested, it is sometimes too late for the victims.

"The innocent victim suffers consequences down the road," Angle said. "Victims lose jobs and get arrested because of what the identity thief has done."

While the crime is usually perpetrated by strangers, Graham County has had three cases in the past year in which the thief stole the identity of a family member.

Most people who commit identity theft are repeat offenders who will offend again in the future, Angle said. The crime is commonly linked with the drug world, especially methamphetamines.

Financially motivated identity theft scams tend to be lucrative. Angle said identity theft is a $50 billion-a-year industry, and the average thief gets away with $4,800 per person for each case of identity theft.

There are various scams and practices used by the thieves.

"They steal your personal information from businesses; they dig through your garbage; they hack into your computers; they steal your wallet or purse; they steal your credit card or credit card numbers; they steal your debit cards and they steal your mail," Angle said. "Identity thieves even steal personal information from people who have died and use that information to obtain benefits."

Thieves use stolen information to open credit card accounts, obtain medical and insurance benefits, buy cars or obtain real estate loans.

In some cases, people steal Social Security numbers. They use this information when applying for jobs to avoid paying taxes, and the victim usually doesn't know what has happened until it is too late.

"Payments are made by an employer to the IRS on the victim's Social Security number," Angle said. "Although this initially sounds beneficial to the victim because the victim is shown to have added more money to Social Security, a serious problem arises when the IRS comes after the victim because the victim has not paid sufficient income taxes on the income earned."

Angle said many victims' credit is ruined. It can take months to clean up their credit reports and costs the average victim $1,200.

People who are victims of identity theft should file a report with a local law enforcement agency. Even if the crime occurred in another county or state -- a common occurrence, according to Angle -- the local agency is required to take a police report.

"The reason for this law is that many credit reporting agencies will not even begin to correct a credit report until there is a police report," Angle said.

Visit the following Web sites for more information on identity theft: www.consumer.gov and www.attorneygeneral.state.az.us.

To contact Greg Jones, call 428-2560 (ext. 234) or e-mail him at gjones@eacourier.com.