Jess Kipf, Identity #1 (or the real identity, however you want to look at it) hacked into the Hawaii Death Registry System in January of 2023 with the username and password of a doctor living in another state (Identity #2!) to create and certify his own death certificate. This resulted in Kipf being registered as a deceased person in many government databases. All for the purpose of avoiding paying more than $116,000 in child support obligations to his daughter and her mother. Death is freedom to a fraudster. Kipf went on to obtain a Social Security number that had not yet been issued by the Social Security Administration (that would be Identity #3!) to use after the government registered his death with his legitimate Social Security number.
Kipft concocted this scheme in a modern yet tried and true way. Good old Google. Investigators found searches on Kipf’s computer to topics such as “California child support arrears father died” and “Remove California child support for deceased”. No weather or sports scores for this fraudster’s search engine.
Kipf pleaded guilty to one count of computer fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. Under the deal, other charges against him were dropped. Turns out, Kipf also hacked other states’ death registry systems, along with private business networks and governmental and corporate networks, using legitimate credentials stolen from real people. He then went on to sell that information on the dark web. Schemes all found in internet searches.
Kudos to the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File. The only nationwide death index available to kibosh fraudsters schemes.
Today’s Fraud of The Day is based on article “Man Who U.S. Says Faked Death to Avoid Child Support Gets 81 Months in Prison” published by The New York Times on August 20, 2024.
A Kentucky man who prosecutors say hacked into state death registry systems to fake his own death — in part to avoid paying more than $100,000 in child support — was sentenced on Monday to 81 months in federal prison, the authorities said.
According to federal prosecutors, the man, Jesse Kipf, 39, of Somerset, Ky., hacked into the Hawaii Death Registry System in January 2023 with the username and password of a doctor living in another state to create and certify his own death certificate. “This resulted in Kipf being registered as a deceased person in many government databases,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky said in a news release on Tuesday.
