Wells Fargo could face identity theft charges
New York — Wells Fargo, under fire for creating 2-million unauthorised accounts for its customers, is under a criminal investigation in California over alleged identity theft, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday. California attorney-general Kamala Harris ordered the third-largest US bank by assets to provide a trove of information, including the identities of the California customers who had unauthorised accounts opened in their names and those of the Wells Fargo employees who opened them, the newspaper said, citing a search warrant served on October 5. Harris wanted to know whether Wells Fargo violated California laws prohibiting certain types of impersonation and the unauthorised use of personal information, the newspaper reported. Both violations could be charged as felonies, punishable by imprisonment for more than a year, the newspaper noted, adding that it was not clear whether Harris’s office was considering charges against individual bank workers, high-level bank exe...
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