Authorities in the US say they captured an 86-year-old man who had been exploiting his brother’s name to collect Social Security payments twice by utilising facial recognition technology to determine that the identical face belonged to two separate people.
Authorities say that Napoleon Gonzalez, of Etna, stole the identity of his dead newborn brother in 1965 and exploited it to get Social Security benefits, multiple passports, and state identification cards in both names.
On Friday, a jury in U.S. District Court in Bangor found him guilty of several charges, including mail fraud, Social Security fraud, passport fraud, and identity theft. The maximum possible term for mail fraud is twenty years in jail.
On Tuesday, Gonzalez’s lawyer said that his client would be appealing the conviction and would fight to remain free until a decision from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Social Security Administration looked into Gonzalez’s benefits for possible fraud in 2010, and his payments were upheld.
In 2020, a fresh probe was initiated when facial recognition software found Gonzalez’s likeness on two state ID cards.
Emily Cook, a spokeswoman for the Maine Secretary of State’s office, explained that the state’s Bureau of Motor Vehicles uses face recognition technology to prevent individuals from obtaining duplicate credentials or credentials in the name of another individual.
When fraud is uncovered, the corresponding financial dealings are probed and may be forwarded to the appropriate authorities for further action. That’s exactly what occurred here,” she explained.
According to court records, when asked why he was using his dead brother’s name, Gonzalez said he was following orders from the Air Force’s Office of Special Investigations during an undercover operation in the 1960s. According to the records, he eventually acknowledged impersonating his brother after faking his own death.
Gonzalez is now at large since a date for his sentence has not been established.
