By Walter Dubowec

This true story is every online shopper’s worst nightmare.

It’s a chilling tale with links to Texas, England and Indonesia. It proves that identity theft is an international menace that knows no borders. Anyone can be a victim.

As a result of a stolen credit card being used to purchase child pornography, Simon Bunce of Hampshire, England was arrested and falsely accused of being a pedophile, he lost his $250,000-a-year job, his father and siblings abandoned him and his computer was confiscated by the authorities. 

     

The BBC reported that Mr. Bunce was an innocent victim of Operation Ore, a massive British online kiddie-porn crackdown that grew out of Operation Avalanche. That US-based sweep was an earlier American operation which began with a raid on Landslide Productions, a Texas company that handled credit-card transactions for adult web sites.

American authorities handed over a list of British credit-card numbers allegedly used to make purchases through Landslide’s payment processing facilities.

British law enforcement began rounding up 7,200 people, whose card numbers showed up on the list. Among them were rock star Pete Townshend of the Who and in 2004, an unsuspecting Simon Bunce.

Bunce was arrested without any investigation "on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, downloading indecent images of children and incitement to distribute indecent images of children" — all before a single image of such had been found on his computers at home and at work.

Mr. Bunce was fired from his high-paying job and estranged from most of his family. Only his wife believed his innocence.  So while his computer sat in police custody waiting to be examined, Bunce began trying to clear his name.

"I knew there'd been a fundamental mistake made and so I had to investigate it," he said.
Using the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and a catalog of Internet Protocol addresses, Bunce began the process to prove he was falsely accused.


Credit card was stolen from an online shopping site

Bunce discovered that his credit-card number had been used in Jakarta, Indonesia, to buy child pornography online at the exact same moment he used the card to pay a bill for dinner at a London restaurant.

It turns out that Bunce’s credit card number had been stolen from a popular online-retail site and was subsequently used to make illegal online purchases.

Finally, after several months, the police admitted that Bunce was innocent and there was no evidence of child pornography on his computer.

Mr. Bunce eventually found a new job and now sells computer security services. However, the loss of time, money, his job and damaged personal relationships can’t be measured.

Think it can't happen to you? Think again!