It’s a measure of the brazenness and ubiquity of identity theft that a U.S. Senator has become the latest victim of credit card fraud. Thieves stole the credit card numbers belonging to Senator Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii, embedded them on the magnetic strip of a fake credit card, and went on a $12,000 Walmart shopping spree.

Might have wanted to check to see who owned the credit card you had stolen before going on a swipe frenzy…

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that an ex-Walmart cashier is accused of working in tandem with an identity theft and credit card crime couple. The two would enter the store periodically and pick up items, as well as buy and load up gift cards. They would always use the register the woman worked at so she could facilitate the transaction. Surveillance footage showed that the ex-cashier would sometimes keep some of the gift cards.

Police are still looking for the male in the couple, while the third party in the affair was not named in the indictment.

“This incident illustrates that anyone can be targeted by identity thieves at anytime and we must all work hard to safeguard our personal information,” a spokesperson for the Senator told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Alleged DeKalb ID thieves accused of getting U.S. senator from Hawaii [Atlanta Journal-Constitution via

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