A 13-year-old report listing names, Social Security numbers and birth dates for Navy employees is raising concern over identity theft at Dahlgren.
Officials at the Naval Surface Warfare Center are warning past and present employees that their identities--and credit ratings--could be at risk.
According to a news release, two pages of a Naval Surface Warfare Center Employment Verification Report dated July, 7, 1994, were found when four people were arrested in Bensalem Township, Pa., last week for attempted identity fraud. A Navy employee was notified by the Bensalem police that someone had stolen his identity and was trying to use his credit card to buy a television.
The report found in Pennsylvania lists 100 current and former employees from various Navy offices at Dahlgren and at Naval Surface Warfare Centers in White Oak, Md., and Panama City, Fla.
John Joyce, a spokesman for the warfare center, said the U.S. Secret Service is investigating how the four suspects obtained the report. The suspects were not identified in the Navy release. Capt. Sheila Patterson, commander for the Naval Surface Warfare Center, said she did not know whether they ever worked at Dahlgren.
Calls to the Richmond bureau of the Secret Service and the Bensalem Township Police Department were not returned yesterday. Last evening, the Bucks County Courier Times newspaper in Levittown, Pa. identified the suspects as Charles Thomas, 43, Ethan Moore, 27, Carolyn McCoy, 37 and Gino McCoy, 43, all of Philadelphia.
"It is unknown how the individual(s) came to be in possession of this hard copy report dated 13.5 years ago," the Navy statement said. "It is also unknown whether additional pages of this report exist, and if so, whether those pages have also been compromised."
At the time the Navy report was published in 1994, the warfare center at Dahlgren was handling human resources information for five Navy offices at Dahlgren and the two out of state. According to a Navy statement, all employees on the two recovered pages have last names beginning with the letter B. An NSWC summary of the incident said the report includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, position titles, tenure codes, pay grades, salaries and other information about the employees.
Patterson said the warfare center is sending letters to the 100 people on the list. All current employees have been notified of the situation. She said the command wants to "make sure any possible employees or former employees that [could be] affected go back and check credit reports." This includes those people who worked on the base prior to 1994.