A joint state and federal task force has been quietly targeting what investigators say is a sophisticated organized crime ring in the Twin Cities with about 200 members who have allegedly stolen identities, taken over bank and credit card accounts, distributed counterfeit checks and currency and defrauded businesses and banks nationwide.

The ring recruits members on social networking sites like Facebook, buys stolen information from employees of check-cashing services and Internet data brokers, and has even sent trusted ring members to college and business schools to qualify them for jobs in financial institutions or other targeted businesses, investigators say.

"This looks like it could be one of the biggest cases of its type in the country," said Patrick Henry, commander of the Minnesota Financial Crimes Task Force. "Most of my task force is involved in this investigation."

Some members have been charged, but neither he nor the U.S. attorney's office would comment on specific cases. Henry spoke broadly about the investigation at a recent meeting of public and private fraud investigators, some of whom assisted with the case.

The ring is rooted in West Africa and Eastern Europe, Henry said. Taking it down could disrupt 30 to 40 percent of the fraudulent check activity in the Twin Cities, he said.

Bremer Bank's security and fraud team is "well aware of the crime ring," though it hasn't noticed any recent uptick in such fraud, said spokeswoman Teresa Morrow. "These guys are unbelievable; they're into everything."

A Wells Fargo spokesman said the bank is working closely with law enforcement on the matter and declined to commet further. TCF Bank declined to comment, and US Bank did not respond to a request for comment.

According to affidavits filed in separate federal criminal cases in New Jersey and Minnesota, the nationwide investigation into the fraud ring began in the fall of 2007. The target: A multi-national identity theft ring operating in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Nigeria, Ukraine and other places.

Its members allegedly have obtained information on accounts from institutions ranging from TCF Bank, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America, to federal credit unions serving employees of the U.S. Navy, the Pentagon, the Senate and State Department.

Financial institutions stung by a New Jersey branch of the identity-theft ring suffered losses exceeding $2.5 million even as they thwarted attempts that would have stripped $4 million more from home equity credit accounts, the government said. Stolen funds were transferred to co-conspirators in Japan, Nigeria, South Korea and Canada, among other countries.

In Minnesota, 11 Nigerian immigrants allegedly used purloined personal information on about 1,330 accounts at Capitol One Bank in McLean, Va., to defraud the bank of $652,000. The government says the stolen money was allegedly used to buy salvaged cars at auction for shipment to Nigeria, where, according to an informant, they'd be sold as top quality for a higher price.

Inside the group

Henry said the Twin Cities crime ring operates throughout the metro area, but primarily in north Hennepin County. It has a hierarchical structure, "with 10 individuals on the upper-executive levels. ...We've identified probably more than 50 to 60 mid-level managers; probably 150-plus 'runners,'" he said, referring to low-level employees who are paid as little as $60 to cash counterfeit checks and perform other risky chores.

"We've surveilled champagne parties they give to their most prolific criminals, " Henry said.

The group has continued to recruit new members, Henry said. They steal personal information from parked cars and garbage cans and burglarize businesses for payroll data, he said. The group also uses devices known as skimmers that steal data from ATMs and credit cards, he added.

And sometimes they simply buy the information. According to a sworn statement filed by Curtis Chapa of the Secret Service, ring members in Minnesota paid $57,770 to a resident of Chernivtsi, Ukraine, for account-holder information. Chapa testified at a court hearing in September that the information packets might include names, addresses, Social Security numbers, account numbers, dates of birth and mothers' maiden names.

"The criminal operation is suspected of having several people who work in the financial industry across the United States and abroad," Chapa added.

Henry said the ring also has participants working in nursing homes, check-cashing services and other firms who are stealing account information -- sometimes targeting accounts at specific businesses.

Clever crooks

Government court filings say the fraud rings in New Jersey and Minnesota used unusually sophisticated methods to get around bank and business security measures.

For instance, they mined public databases and data on the Internet for personal information about individuals, then contacted the person's financial institution to hijack their accounts. To avoid detection, the identity thieves masked or modified caller ID information, or redirected the victim's telephone line to one they controlled.

After changing PIN numbers, addresses and phone numbers on accounts, the thieves drained them of money or ran up charges using counterfeit ATM and credit cards, counterfeit checks or wire transfers to bogus business accounts.

In the Minnesota case, ring members took over Capital One credit accounts and withdrew cash in $380 increments, targeting ATMs in the Cardtronic Network at Walgreens, CVS and Target stores. Chapa, the Secret Service agent, testified that $380 was the maximum withdrawal allowed in a given day, so they hit the ATMs before and after midnight.

One member of the Twin Cities group, Olayemi Lateef Bajoko, pleaded guilty Feb. 10 to a single count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. His plea agreement anticipates a prison sentence of 78 to 97 months and requires him to cooperate in the investigation.

Titilayo Abidewi Fowoshere, 33 -- the wife of a suspected leader of the group -- is scheduled to plead guilty Tuesday in St. Paul to bank fraud conspiracy. Her husband, Bashiru Adelumola Fowoshere, 36, has returned to Nigeria, according to Chapa. He said police and the Anoka County attorney's office searched the Fowosheres' house in Ramsey in October 2007, looking for evidence of welfare fraud, and found evidence of identity theft and bank fraud.

Henry said group members in northeast Minneapolis placed a card skimmer at a bank's drive-up ATM. "It looks like another plastic lip on an ATM machine with a pinhole camera set up that will capture ... your pin number," Henry said. "They would download the information to Eastern Europe."

In another recent case, Henry said, a local group stripped about $50,000 from an Alabama man's home equity line of credit. The money was wired to a bank account here, where a suspect tapped it to buy three older luxury cars to sell overseas. Investigators intervened and recovered the cars, he said.

Henry said all financial crimes must be closely scrutinized because organized crime rings are forging alliances. "It harkens back to the days of the mafia," he said.

Dan Browning • 612-673-4493