Mr Bernanke’s personal bank account became entangled in an elaborate identity-theft scheme after his wife Anna’s purse was stolen last August at a Starbucks coffee shop in Washington DC. According to a police report, it contained her Social Security card, cheque book, credit cards and IDs.

It’s not been revealed how much money was stolen from the Bernankes’ account. But someone started cashing cheques on their bank account just days after the purse was stolen from her chair. The thefts helped fuel an ongoing investigation into a sophisticated ring. Losses from the fraud added up to more than $2.1m (£37.5m) and involved at least 10 financial institutions, court documents said. Clyde Austin Gray Jr. of Waldorf, Maryland, a suspected ringleader in the scheme, pleaded guilty in a Virginia court in July.

The banks bore primary responsibility for the losses and the victims’ accounts, including the Bernankes, were most likely made whole.

“Identity theft is a serious crime that affects millions of Americans each year,” Mr Bernanke said in a statement. “Our family was but one of 500 separate instances traced to one crime ring. I am grateful for the law enforcement officers who patiently and diligently work to solve and prevent these financial crimes.”

Kudos to Law Enforcement for a quick resolution to this case. The guy who stole my identity in 2001 still hasn’t been caught…..I wonder why?

Albert Talton, 44, is charming and soft-spoken, a big, fastidious man with a taste for expensive cars and high-end audio equipment. Born and raised in Southern California, he has been a criminal for most of his life.
[…]
When Talton set out to circumvent the U.S. Treasury’s security measures, he had no experience in counterfeiting, printing, or graphic design, and he didn’t even own a computer. His first attempts were made with a Hewlett-Packard all-in-one ink-jet printer/scanner/fax/copier, which could be picked up at the time for less than $150. Early experiments, printed on regular copy paper, were fuzzy, so he cleaned up the original image on a computer. But there was a problem, Talton says: “It wouldn’t take the mark.” Counterfeit-detection pens mark yellow on genuine currency but brown or black on fake. […] He was about to give up when one day, sitting on the toilet, he found himself staring at the roll of tissue beside him. He took out the pen: The mark showed up yellow. Talton discovered that toilet paper, the pages of Bibles and dictionaries, and newsprint are all made from the same kind of recycled paper pulp, and all take the mark.