22 years ago today...

valerie · Post by **valerie** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 11:14 am

Kevin Collins, only 10 years old, disappeared off the streets of San

Francisco. I remember seeing the flyers up everywhere.

Here is a link to a recent bizarre twist to the story: (Top story, video)

http://www.kron.com/

minks · Post by **minks** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:37 pm

Holy cow!

Uncle Kram · Post by **Uncle Kram** » Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:46 pm

Tough on his folks having their hopes momentarily raised

teramiabullfrog · Post by **teramiabullfrog** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 2:53 pm

my computer doesn't play the video you refer to, please reply as to what it says or shows. F.O.C.U.S. Organization was started after one of our volunteers did volunteer work for David Collins. David Collins is the reason many of todays missing child laws, agencies, and programs exist. He was the pioneer of bringing to light the seriousness of the missing children problem in this country.

Post by **spot** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 4:06 pm

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... H6AC21.DTL covers the February news story.

Mofrad, a 40-year-old man with addresses in Pinole and San Ramon, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison Thursday after pleading guilty in November to a passport fraud scheme. He admitted taking Collins' name from an online directory of missing children, investigators said, and using it to try to establish a bogus identity.

teramiabullfrog · Post by **teramiabullfrog** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 9:47 pm

thanks for the info on the attempted identity theft of kevin collins - really sick, unbelievable what some people try to do.

Post by **spot** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 9:59 pm

If one wishes to take on a new identity there are only two ways, forgery or impersonation. Forgery involves documents that aren't legally issued, impersonation gets you the real paperwork.

For a while, it was possible (certainly in the UK) to resurrect a dead person who had never applied for official papers. That involved finding a gravestone of someone too young to have applied for a passport or driving licence and of the right age, getting a copy of the right birth certificate based on the memorial text, and using the certificate to get the passport and driving license.

When the checking process finally got round to incorporating the registry of deaths in its background validation, missing children lists became the only source of "clean" identities to take on. The practice is as unethical and illegal as any identity theft, but the addition of "missing children" isn't an extra degree of heinousity, it's an inevitable aspect of entering the system.