NYC law enforcement officials Thursday announced the indictment of 27 people from Queens who allegedly stole personal identities through an Internet-based phone call scheme.

Police say a city-based identity theft and credit fraud ring with roots in Nigeria, stole thousands of personal identities from people across the U.S. and Canada, racked up charges on individual accounts, and shipped forged credit cards to eager buyers worldwide, including in Japan, India, Saudi Arabia and Ireland.

“We think they have this sort of reach. It’s international in scope,” said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

Kelly and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown say the ring was based in Queens and broken up after a 21-month operation in which police recovered card-making equipment, cash and credit reports.

They say banks and individuals on both sides of the border have already lost $15 million in the scheme.

The NYPD says investigators started working on Operation Plastic Pipeline after someone at a Queens realty firm reported opening a package not meant for him.

“Inside were 60 new credit cards, valid, meant to be delivered after customers renewed,” said Kelly.

Police did not say how those legitimate credit cards were intercepted.

Investigators also warned about “spoofing”, a technology allowing virtually anyone to make a call that appears to originate somewhere else and claims to be someone else. One website that sells so-called “spoof cards” says you can legally “Display any number for the caller ID” and use the technology to change your voice, even sounding like the opposite gender.

In this case, investigators say the suspects called up banks, and convinced officials they were the customer whose number showed up on the caller ID.

“It allowed pins to be changed, new lines of credit to be opened,” said Brown.

Officials are now looking to criminalize the technology.

“We are investigating if it’s legal, and if not, will seek legislation making it illegal,” said Brown.

Police say the best way to protect yourself is to keep an eye on your credit accounts and credit reports. Police also said the suspects were careful not to spend too much money at once using the bogus credit cards, and avoided suspicion for some time.

(Source: NY1)