Woman charged as underling in Citizens Bank fake-ID withdrawal ring

A Boston woman was indicted this week on charges she used fake IDs and information on Citizens Bank customers to make a series of withdrawals at bank branches across the area in 2010 and 2011.

Kimberly Gomez, 53, is charged with draining more than $63,000 from the accounts of three Citizens customers, in an indictment by a federal grand jury in Boston - which says she was sent into banks by as yet unidentified conspirators who managed to get information on bank customers with high balances and who supplied her with fake driver's licenses with which to make the withdrawals.

Gomez may have been undone at least party by sloppy work by her ring mates: One withdrawal was rejected because the customer's name was misspelled on the fake driver's license Gomez allegedly presented as ID; two others because the address on bogus IDs didn't match those in the bank's current records.

According to the indictment,

A participant in the scheme obtained, from Citizens Bank, the names of customers with high savings account balances, along with their home addresses, dates of birth, and account numbers.

In late 2010, another participant in the scheme ("Ms. S") recruited Gomez, in a bar, to participate in the scheme. Ms. S asked Gomez if she wanted to make some extra money, and Gomez agreed.

Ms. S took Gomez's photo and used it, along with the information from Citizens Bank, to obtain fake ID's with the names and addresses of Citizens' customers but with Gomez's photo.

Gomez then used these fake IDs to make the fraudulent withdrawals from Citizens Bank. She gave the cash she withdrew to Ms. S, who paid Gomez approximately $500 a day for her work.

The indictment gives examples of the alleged withdrawals:

Between December 29,2010 and January 8, 2011, Gomez used a fake Rhode Island driver's license to withdraw $39,500 from Citizen's Bank customer Patricia Co's savings accounts at Citizens Bank branches in Stoneham, Andover, Reading, Woburn, and Kingston, Massachusetts.

Innocent, etc.