Hall County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) investigators recently charged a man with identity theft/fraud in a complicated scheme to use a local company’s information to steal cell phones, culminating an investigation that began last summer.
HCSO NEWS RELEASE:
“The HCSO Protective Transport Unit took custody of Brendan Fitzhenry Mundy, 22, of Fayetteville, at the Fayette County Jail on Thursday morning…and transported him to the Hall County Jail on his local charges. In addition to theft/fraud, a felony, investigators charged Mundy with giving false information to an officer and obstruction of an officer, both misdemeanors.
The initial investigation began (last August) when HCSO received a report from Georgia Powder Coating about someone changing the name of one of its officers in an online filing with the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. On Sept. 18, company officials followed up with deputies about an unauthorized cell phone account that had been billed to the company using the same name. No one affiliated with the company has that name.
The following week on Sept. 25, the company received a call from a man using the previously mentioned name. He claimed some of his packages were accidentally shipped to the company’s Zander Drive location and that he would come get them. The packages, which contained 10 cell phones, arrived on the same day, and deputies responded to the business.
While deputies were there, a man arrived to claim the packages. According to the investigation, the man identified himself to deputies (not the name associated with the previous reports). Deputies asked for his ID, which he claimed was in the SUV he came in. When deputies asked him to retrieve it, the man ran on foot and got into the vehicle as a passenger. Deputies attempted to stop the vehicle in the parking area, but the driver drove off on…Browns Bridge Road. Deputies followed the SUV for less than a mile. They obtained the tag number.
HCSO property crimes investigators worked the case for weeks. With assistance from the Sandy Springs Police Department, they identified Mundy as the suspect who tried to claim the packages on Sept. 25. They obtained warrants for his arrest in early December.
Mundy remains in the Hall County Jail on $8,850 bond on his local charges and a hold from another jurisdiction in the state.
The case remains under investigation. Additional arrests and/or charges are possible.”