http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews
(I had to edit back the link as it was stretching the window)

VULTURES IN FORGERY RING SWIPED N.J. WIDOW'S ID


By IAN BISHOP in D.C. and JENNIFER FERMINO in N.Y


July 6, 2006 -- MIDLOTHIAN, Va. - Lifelong New Jersey resident Pauline Gostyla died three months ago in a nursing home - but a Post investigation found that her Social Security number was being sold openly on the streets of Queens by green-card forgers.
"Oh, my God!" exclaimed daughter-in-law Toni Gostyla when informed by The Post that the paper had bought a forged Social Security card.

A Post reporter read Toni the card's all-too-familiar numbers.

"I know it by heart! This is so bizarre," she said. "This is terrible that people could do that. I tell my 22-year-old [daughter] when she goes out, 'Be careful, because you never know what can happen.' "

The late 92-year-old's numbers were sold to Post reporter Douglas Montero under the rumbling 7 train in Jackson Heights, along with a bogus green card, for $110.

It took only three hours for the journalist to get his hands on the forged documents that an illegal immigrant could use to remain in the United States.

The bogus documents - which experts said could fool employers - had Montero's name and age, not Pauline Gostyla's.

The late woman's relatives, who live in Virginia, believe a Hispanic woman they hired to care for the ailing woman sold her information to the document scammers.

"I suspect that with all of the help my mother had at the house . . . for lack of better words, very diverse people . . . it wasn't that big a surprise her information is being used," said the victim's son, Frank Gostyla.

In earlier times Pauline was active in the Columbiettes, the woman's version of the Knights of Columbus, and took part in organizing trips to Atlantic City for her church group.

But after her husband died, she was living alone in her home in Clifton, N.J., and needed a caretaker.

And although the woman's duties were to bathe and feed the widow, Pauline began complaining to her son and daughter-in-law, Toni recalled.

"She'd call me and say, 'She's stealing from me,' " she said.

The family called a social worker to check out the claims, but the official reported back that everything was on the up-and-up. And so they let it go.

"Maybe she has dementia," Toni remembers thinking about Pauline. "[We thought], is she hallucinating?"

But now she's convinced the health-care worker was ripping off her mother-in-law.

"That woman had access to all her paperwork," said Toni.

By 2004, Pauline's health was so poor that Frank and Toni sold the New Jersey home and relocated her to a Virginia nursing home to be closer to them. From then on, they handled all of her mail and paperwork.

Frank, 57, said he wasn't sure whether to file a complaint with authorities.

"I don't know at this point," he said.

He said the family assets are protected now.

"Thank God, all of her bank accounts are closed and out of reach," he said.

The sale of bogus green cards and cribbed Social Security numbers is a multi-million dollar industry controlled by Latin American street gangs.

Some immigrant neighborhoods are full of hustlers pushing the shady paperwork, starting at $75.

Frank Gostyla said he was troubled by immigration policy.

"The country should have been doing a better job for years. Now, since 9/11 we have a major immigration problem," he said.

Some lawmakers also fear the fraudulent documents pose a serious security threat.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King praised The Post for exposing the dirty industry in yesterday's editions.

"The real risk is for terror," said King (R-L.I.). "Obviously, you don't want illegal aliens getting jobs - but the real risk is [that] getting a phony green card enables the terrorist to move around, to get a job, and to become part of the community."
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What I find especially sad is that this poor woman KNEW she was being robbed, but no one believed her.