We wrote about this here in Ten Private Investigators Indicted on 7 Dec 07.
Wired Magazine has posted the Indictment of the accused who allegedly employed false pretenses to gain personal information. A related Wired article compares this type of pretexting to the HP mess.
The accused are from Washington, California, Oregon, Texas and New York:
Emilio Torrella, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Brandy Torella, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Steve Berwick, BNT Investigations, Washington State
Victoria Tade, C.I., Inc., California
Megan Ososke, P.I. and Information Services, Oregon
Robert Grieve, Robert Greive International, Texas
Ziad Sakhleh, Robert Greive International, Texas
Darci Templeton, sole proprietor, Texas
Patrick Bombino, AAA Allstate Investigations, New York
Esau Pinto, AAA Allstate Investigations, New York
The Indictment alleges that BNT supplied the improperly obtained personal information to the PI’s for a fee. BNT was not identified as a private investigation firm in the Indictment, but was identified as a company that sold its pretexting services to PI firms. Some of the PI firms even advertised for sale to other PI’s what they were obtaining from BNT.
Accusations #17 and #21 allege that BNT obtained medical information by pretext, much in the same way as was revealed by he Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentiality of Health Records in Ontario, Canada, by Mr. Justice Horace Krever.