To victims, the data can mean everything. After a full-blown identity theft, many will spend months clearing up financial demerits from overdrawn credit cards and bad car loans, and spend years checking their credit reports. To Cummings, the data was worth . . .
To victims, the data can mean everything. After a full-blown identity theft, many will spend months clearing up financial demerits from overdrawn credit cards and bad car loans, and spend years checking their credit reports. To Cummings, the data was worth $30 per victim, authorities said.

During a three-year crime spree, Cummings was allegedly the point man in a scheme that saw victims' personal financial information stolen and sold to a ring of about 20 Nigerian nationals in the New York City area. Until the group got greedy earlier this year, and stole 15,000 credit reports while impersonating the Ford Motor Company, no one noticed.

"With a few keystrokes, these men essentially picked the pockets of tens of thousands of Americans and, in the process, took their identities, stole their money and swiped their security," Manhattan U.S. Attorney James Comey said at a press conference Monday.

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