New Zealander Kevin Anthony Osborne had a lucrative scam going. He applied to District Courts for birth certificates, sometimes ordering large amounts of data, claiming he was conducting genealogy research. He looked for males with birth dates near his own who had died. He then assumed their identity, applied for admission at various universities, and then applied for student loans.
“A couple of occasions they wrote to the courts saying they were conducting a genealogy research, and could they have the birth certificates for x amount of people, and they were subsequently supplied with them,” says Detective Sergeant Nigel Hughes, from Christchurch police.
Today, ten years later, Osborne was sent to prison. The judge sentenced him to 14 months behind bars, ending his 10 years on the run.
“He is a low life. He must have had no morals whatsoever and go around cemeteries and look at gravestones,” said Ian Barker. Ian and his wife Margerate are victims of his scam… Osborne stole their son Brett’s identity in the name of greed.
You can read more about this story in the TV3 web site at http://tinyurl.com/2wan2z.
