Federal prosecutors in Virginia have leveled conspiracy and bank-fraud charges against the alleged leader and nine members of a national organization of high-tech pickpockets that's been the scourge of police around the country since at least early 2007.

The suspects allegedly stole the identities and bank-account information from victims around the country through pickpocketing and other means, including stealing checks from a Washington, D.C., charity-fundraising group. They're accused of using the information to cash checks through victim accounts in several states.

The charges represent the federal government's first large-scale swipe at the 200-plus members of "Cannon to the Wiz," a Chicago-based identity-theft ring known for marrying high-tech fraud techniques with the Dickensian art of pickpocketing.

Police have said the thieves sometimes keep computers, cameras and printers in their cars so they can substitute their own photos on stolen driver's licenses within minutes of lifting them, and rack up thousands of dollars in charges at nearby shops before victims have even noticed they've been robbed.

The feds say the crooks also worked a convoluted shell game to exploit victims' bank accounts. They'd steal personal checks from one victim, deposit them into another victim's legitimate account, then withdraw the money and disappear. The scheme, known as "split deposits," resulted in losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars to banks.

The ring allegedly travels around the country to crowded events, and targeted sports fans attending the Final Four basketball games in Detroit in April.

"I was a nervous wreck," says Donna Pendergast, whose wallet was stolen from her purse after she passed through security at Ford Field in Detroit. "An absolute nervous wreck. All I could think of was a house being [bought] in my name. And you would never know about that until you end up with a bill collector on your doorstep."

Pendergast, who happens to be assistant attorney general in Michigan, is one of at least seven victims hit at Ford Field. Detroit police made four arrests in April, including alleged ringleader 39-year-old Leonardo Darnell Zanders.

Zanders, now being held in Wayne County Jail in Detroit, is also named as the lead defendant in the new federal conspiracy case.

According to court documents, federal law enforcement began investigating Zanders in September 2007, when he tried to mail three packages through Federal Express that contained stolen personal checks, IDs, bank cards and other documents swiped from 14 victims in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

He fled the FedEx office before authorities could catch him. But in February of this year, postal inspectors executed a search warrant at Zanders' house and found documents for 36 victims in nine states and the District of Columbia. The same month, the Secret Service searched the Maryland house of Zanders' alleged associate Clyde Austin Gray Jr., aka "Big Head" and "Poochie," and found I.D. and bank documents for 85 more victims.

The defendants had packets of documents for each victim, bound with rubber bands. Each packet included personal checks and bank cards stolen from the victim, as well as the original driver's license, and a fake one printed with a thief's photo, according to an affidavit filed by a U.S. postal inspector Monday.

According to an affidavit filed Monday (.pdf), not all of the victims were pickpocketed. At least some of them were targeted after sending checks to the Combined Federal Campaign for the National Capital Area, an organization that conducts an annual fundraising campaign among federal employees to raise money for multiple charities.

The organization raised $62.7 million in 2008, according to its website. According to the complaint, an employee appeared to have pilfered some of the donor checks in order to steal the names and account details from them. At least one victim told the feds that a check sent to the CFCNCA in 2006 was never cashed. Authorities found it in the drawer of a worker at the organization. Authorities also found photocopies of another 13 checks made out to the CFCNCA. The organization did not respond to an inquiry from Wired.com Wednesday.

Several informants inside "Cannon to the Wiz" helped the feds crack the case, including one who told postal inspectors that he or she was paid between $200 and $500 for each set of documents passed on to the ring.

One informant told postal inspectors that he alone had handed over personal information and bank details on 37 victims, which resulted in losses totaling $385,000 through split deposits.

In addition to Zanders and Gray, the eight others charged are Wenona Latrice White, Sydney Anthony Charles, Shonya Michelle Young, Darryl Earl Price, Sylvester Vaughn, George Lee Reid, Claire Barker and Lennier McLeod. McLeod is already serving a six-year prison term for identity theft, after posing as a bank customer at a Suntrust branch in Memphis in 2007 in a split-deposits scheme.

Photo (cc) courtesy seretuaccidente.