AURORA — Two more City Council members have become victims of an identity-theft scam, bringing to seven the total number of victims on the 10-member board.

Councilwomen Barb Cleland and Marsha Berzins were the latest to be victimized.

Meanwhile, police, who aren’t talking about the case, appear to be following several leads.

The identities of council members Renie Peterson, Molly Markert, Brad Pierce, Ryan Frazier and Melissa Miller were stolen over the past few weeks for online purchases of up to $2,000.

The thief or thieves used a billing service called Bill Me Later in the names of the council members to order cameras and other electronic devices that were sent to an Aurora location.

The service does not require a credit card.

Council members were stunned when they received bills for merchandise they had not ordered.

The remaining three council members and the mayor, who haven’t been hit, plan to take steps, such as alerting their banks, to prevent their identities from being stolen.

“I’m concerned, I’m watching,” Councilman Bob FitzGerald said.

Aurora’s human resources department sent a letter to retired city workers last month saying a temporary worker in that department on Aug. 11 and 12 “removed a flash drive (a device used to transfer data from one computer to another) containing personal information including full names, dates of birth and social security numbers” from the city.

The department wanted workers to protect themselves from possible identity theft.

The human resources letter to retirees dated Aug. 23 noted that the flash drive was turned over to police and that there was no evidence anyone’s personal information had been compromised.

However, it was not clear that the flash drive had anything to do with the recent identity thefts.

Aurora police spokesman Bob Friel said the department is not commenting because the investigation is ongoing.

It is not known whether there are any more victims of the same scam outside the City Council who work for the city.

Also, according to an e-mail sent Tuesday from police Detective Michael Gerbino to Peterson, police recently met with a man who lives at the Aurora address where the devices were sent.

The man, whose name was not known, had apparently applied for a job online with a bogus company and that company used his name and address as a “drop point” in the scam.

In the scam, the resident is then asked to send the items overseas for money. It was not known whether he did so in this case.

“He is not involved other than falling prey to a common overseas scam,” Gerbino wrote to Peterson.

Aurora police on Thursday asked council members for a meeting next week to further discuss the identity-theft case.

Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175 or cillescas@denverpost.com