Alleged Identity Theft from Both Sides: Darien Victims in Two Cases, Arrest in a Third

On the same week that a Queens, N.Y. man turned himself in to Darien police on charges related to identity theft, two Darien residents reported being victimized by the lucrative business.

Arrest photo of Shamar Adams, now 27, of 202nd Street, Queens, N.Y.

The arrest came when Shamar Adams, 27, turned himself in at Police Headquarters after he’d been told by a Massachusetts state trooper or police officer (who stopped him for an alleged traffic offense) that Darien police had a warrant for his arrest.

The warrant stemmed from a 2015 incident and investigation. Darien police gave this account of it (including accusations not proven in court):

Back on June 2, 2015, at 4:20 a.m., a police officer saw a car parked at the Exxon service station at 1358 Post Road (the one with the wooden bear in front of it). The gas station was closed, so the officer stopped to ask what the occupants of the car were doing there.

In the car were Adams, a 25-year-old man and a woman, 22. (Police also have since issued an arrest warrant for the other man, who hasn’t been arrested yet.)

The occupants gave conflicting and unconvincing reasons for why they were stopped at a closed gas station. One claimed they were looking for a bathroom. Another said they were stopping to get gas — although the tank was nearly full.

The police officer smelled burnt marijuana coming from the vehicle.

Police searched the vehicle. They found a small plastic bag of marijuana, but also more suspicious items.

There were 53 unopened cigarette packages inside. Adams told police they were buying the cigarettes in Connecticut to resell them in New York, where prices were much higher. Police found four receipts in the car for purchases made between midnight and 4:20 a.m., when the car was noticed at the Exxon station. The receipts were for Newport cigarettes and other tobacco-related products.

More suspicious were the 16 “Vanilla” brand prepaid gift cards police found. Twelve of them were found on Adams himself, and another four were found elsewhere in the car. The ones on Adams appeared to be re-embossed with new numbers. Officers knew those gift cards are frequently shoplifted, then recoded with stolen credit-card or bank card information.

Which is what Darien police detectives later found had happened with these cards. Their magnetic strips contained access information for bank accounts of various people (customers at various banks) whose account numbers had already been reported as stolen.

But detectives didn’t see the cards until later. Adams and his companions were released by police that night because police at that time didn’t have en0ugh information to arrest them — which is why it took a year and a half for Adams to be arrested. Police applied for and received approval for an arrest warrant in July 2015, but Adams was long gone.

Adams was charged with nine counts of unlawful completion or reproduction of a credit card, a felony.

When he showed up at 8 a.m. on Feb. 2 at Police Headquarters, Adams gave police an address on 202nd Street in the St. Albans (or Jamaica) section of Queens in New York City.

He was initially held in lieu of a $10,000 bond. A bail commissioner later reduced the bond to a promise to appear in court. Adams is scheduled to appear Feb. 16 in state Superior Court in Stamford.

Two Reported Cases of Identity Theft

On Saturday, Feb 4, two town residents told police that their identities had been stolen and used in thefts (not related to Shamar Adams).

In one case, a 56-year-old Darien man said he received a bill from Kay Jewelers for $235 as part payment of a $4,642 purchase made on Dec. 23. The man then checked his credit report and found that several other accounts had been opened in his name at about the same time.

The police report mentioned that an address in Malden, Mass. was somehow connected to the opened account, but a department spokesman aid it was unclear what the connection is.

In the other case, a 76-year-old Darien man said he received a bill from Verizon for three phone lines that had been opened in his name. He told Verizon that he wasn’t even a customer of theirs, and the company dropped its payment demand.

In neither case did Darien police get any information on whether the identity thefts occurred in town.