AS crimes go, stealing identities is relatively simple, it doesn't require armed gangs and it can be carried out from pretty much anywhere in the world.
Which is probably why it is
one of the country's fastest growing scams, which one in four have fallen victim to and which costs the UK an estimated £1.7bn a year.
It's also incredibly lucrative. While breaking into a house may see the burglar walk away with goods they can sell on for a few hundred or perhaps thousand pounds, the most organised gangs who steal dates of births and bank account details sit back and watch as the millions pour in.
"In Yorkshire, Leeds is definitely the hotspot, but the reality is it can happen to anyone anywhere.," says KPMG forensic partner Jeremy Outen. "There was been a worrying boom in recent months and criminal gangs, using increasingly aggressive stings, seem to be very active.
"With both the number and the average value of frauds increasing, companies and individuals need to be more watchful than ever."
However, as awareness about identity theft has increased, the methods employed by the fraudsters have becoming increasingly elaborate, with gangs booking bogus viewings on properties in the knowledge they will likely to be able to walk off with some official document, from a bank statement to a utility billl and a growing number are impersonating not just the living, but increasingly the dead.
Last year, 70,000 families discovered a loved one's details had been used to open bank accounts and apply for loans and credit cards running up thousands of pounds of debt in the name of the deceased.
"My wife died of a brain tumour five years ago," said one victim, who did not want to be named. "I found out three months later that someone had stolen her identity and I had to pick up the pieces.
"It's a crime which is all too easy to perpetrate partly because of the amount of post still sent to someone after they die. My six year old son was picking up post and saying, 'Why do they keep mailing mummy when she has died?'"
Towards the end of last year a man calling himself the Earl of Buckingham was jailed for passport offences, in a tale which echoed the plot of Frederick Forsyth's thriller The Day of the Jackal.
The bogus aristocrat stole the identity of a child who had died in the 1960s and even when faced with a prison sentence he refused to reveal his real identity.
In the wake of the case, a total of 1,000 names of dead babies whose identities might be being used by fraudsters has now been placed on a worldwide list and a number of further arrests have already been made.
However, while the dead may be easy pickings for identity thieves, the rest of us are still laying ourselves open to falling victim to the criminals.
While three-quarters of people admit they are concerned about ID theft, a little under a quarter know how to protect themselves and most believe that if it did happen to them they would be alerted within a matter of weeks.
The reality is that it can take many months to discover and even longer to sort out. "ID theft might be a growing crime," says Alison Nicholson, director of MyCallcredit, an online credit monitoring service based in Leeds. "But it is something people can protect themselves from by taking a few simple precautions – there's really no excuse for making these criminals' lives easier. Everyone should really use a shredder and learn to cancel any unused credit facilities, like the store card you take out just to get 10 per cent discount but never use again. Nothing is foolproof, but if you also check your credit file regularly you will at least be alerted as soon as possible if there has been any applications which you haven't sanctioned."
While debts run up by the fraudster can usually be reclaimed, in the case of identity theft it's a case that prevention is better than cure.
"I had been travelling around Chile and just before I came back I went to an internet cafe to check my emails," says student Kahla Mayhew.
"I opened one from an internet betting site which was thanking me for putting £500 into an account.
"Just before I'd gone travelling I'd bought a birthday present on the internet and I think that's where they got my details from. I immediately cancelled my card and they never actually got their hands on my money, but it's a case of once bitten twice shy."

sarah.freeman@ypn.co.uk

BEAT THE ID THIEVES
n Shred personal documents before you throw them away
n Cancel store and credit cards you don't use
n Don't give out personal information to anyone who contacts you, get their number and phone them back to confirm they are legitimate.
n Check your credit file regularly to see what information is held about you.
n Be vigilant and check all your financial statements.

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