Identity Theft Criminals Arrested After Posting Instagram Picture

Ninjas are forever telling on themselves via Instagram and Twitter.

Identity Theft Criminals Arrested After Posting Instagram Picture

According to The Daily Mail

Identity thief didn’t make a very good job of concealing his own identity after investigators were able to track him down through a picture he posted on Instagram of his steak dinner.

Nathaniel Troy Maye, 44, of Harlem, New York, and his partner Tiwanna Tenise Thomason, 39, of Miramar, pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft and possession of unauthorized access devices on Friday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale.

In a judicial first, the Instagram photo of a steak and macaroni and cheese dinner was cited as evidence in the federal felony complaint.

IRS agents had few clues about the man who called himself Troy early on in the investigation but finally got their break through the help of the photo sharing website.

On January 7, a witness working undercover for the IRS met Maye and Thomason at Morton’s steakhouse in Fort Lauderdale, the Sun Sentinel reports.

He was supposed to hand over a flash drive containing 50,000 identities which he believed would be used to file fraudulent income tax returns.

When the handover was made at the restaurant, the drive contained only 50 identities. But IRS agents were also able to find hidden data linking the drive to a ‘Troy Maye”.

When a special agent searched online, she found an Instagram profile for ‘TROYMAYE’ who, on January 7, posted a picture of a steak and macaroni and cheese meal which he captioned ‘Morton’s’.

His profile picture also matched the description the witness gave.

When they were arrested at Thomason’s apartment, they found two flash drives containing around 50,000 illegally obtained identities.

They face up to a dozen years in federal prison and large fines for stealing and attempting to sell 700,000 identities.

One thing is for sure, he won’t be having steak dinners in prison.