NYT: Meth Users, Attuned to Detail, Add ID Theft Habit

Meth Users, Attuned to Detail, Add ID Theft Habit
By JOHN LELAND
Published: July 11, 2006


(Kevin Moloney for the New York Times)
"It amazes me. They still put their checks in their own mailboxes, and that was one of the biggest things we did was watch for red flags on mailboxes."


Joe Morales, a prosecutor in Denver, can remember when crack came to his city in the 1980’s. Gangs set up on Colfax Avenue and in the Five Points neighborhood, and street crime — murders and holdups — grew.

When methamphetamine proliferated more recently, the police and prosecutors at first did not associate it with a rise in other crimes. There were break-ins at mailboxes and people stealing documents from garbage, Mr. Morales said, but those were handled by different parts of the Police Department.

But finally they connected the two. Meth users — awake for days at a time and able to fixate on small details — were looking for checks or credit card numbers, then converting the stolen identities to money, drugs or ingredients to make more methamphetamine. For these drug users, Mr. Morales said, identity theft was the perfect support system.

While public concern about identity theft has largely focused on elaborate computer schemes, for law enforcement officials in Denver and other Western areas, meth users have become the everyday face of identity theft. Like crack cocaine in the 1980’s, officials say, the rise of methamphetamine has been accompanied by a specific set of crimes and skills that are shared among users and dealers.

"The knowledge of how to violate the law comes contemporaneously with the meth epidemic," said Sheriff Paul A. Pastor of Pierce County, Wash., who said the majority of identity theft cases his officers investigated involved methamphetamine....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/us/11meth.html?hp&ex=1152590400&en=6a5e02f637706c36&ei=5094&partner=homepage

back in the day... 7 years ago, half the people I knew on Meth were doing some kind of fraud. Checks, Internet stuff, raiding mailboxes.

They can't really be just catching on! :shrug:

Cops, just like everyone else, can be lulled into nice, safe and comfortable routines and patterns.

Remember another thing, as well: tweakers are repulsive. That's just a fact. Meth does not make you a better and more attractive person. Cops can feel the same repulsion. Repulsion creates aversion. Aversion creates a desire to avoid them until they go pick up the body.

Out here, in NJ, the cops don't have the first idea about tweakage and aren't particularly interested in learning. Sooner or later, one of the houses in this placid rural area is gonna blow up and then, they are gonna have to play one hell of a lot of catchup.

Years ago, in Eastern PA, the cops were a lot smarter. They knew the Pagans motorcycle gangs were running meth labs in isolated houses in the mountains. The cops would fly around with helicopters and look for houses with dead trees around them. Seems like meth labs kill trees. They made a lot of busts that way.

I am not a big fan of drug laws and drug enforcement, in most cases. I can make an exception for meth. Nothing good has ever come of that crap. Nothing at all.

(about it not being legalized, along with other drugs)

I was on that crap for 7+ years, the last 3 I spent desperately trying to kick it, but programs were always full, no room for someone who had not hit rock bottom and ended up in jail.

All drugs should be regulated, taxed heavily, and those taxes used for recovery programs. Every crime committed should still be punished as required by law, whether you are high or not.

I get the repulsion thing, now that I'm clean. I can't stand to even be in the same room with a tweaker.

I'm sure that giving up tweakage was no easy feat!