"It was just horrible!" Identities stolen from hospitals and clinics

MIAMI, Fl. (WITI) — If you think your personal information is safe inside a hospital or clinic — think again! One ID theft ring easily extracted information that impacted the lives of dozens of families.

Kateena Norman is just one member of that ID theft ring.

Security cameras at Home Depot captured Kateena Norman applying for a credit card with another person's information.

Security cameras at Home Depot actually caught Norman applying for a fraudulent credit card. But, how she got her hands on that information is disturbing.

"They were obtaining it through clinics, hospitals. There were some individuals that were involved working at these hospitals," explained U.S. Postal Inspector Javier Dominguez.

Employees would steal patients' personal information and give the thieves whatever they needed.

"They pretty much had everything. They had your name, they had your social, your date of birth, they even had they had email addresses," Dominguez revealed.

In all, 50 victims lost more than $130,000.

"They would obtain these credit cards and then go out purchase merchandise…bring it back and then sell it. And, that's how they would make their money," Dominguez said.

Kateena Norman

The case began to unravel after merchants like JCPenney and Home Depot reported fraudulent credit card applications. Inspectors say the trail led right to Kateena Norman.

"When we did a search of her house, she had the notebook with all of these names and all these addresses and personal identifiers — it was all there in this notebook that she had," said Dominguez.

One of the victims in this case was a middle-aged woman who had just learned she had terminal cancer.

"They were devastated, you know, going through this process and then on top of that having to deal with trying to clean up their family's credit — it was just horrible," Dominguez said.

Norman is scheduled to be sentenced in May.