According to Marine Corps Times, a former Marine stole his brother’s identity to get into the Navy, worked at Naval Hospital Guam for about 19 months under a false name, and then faked his suicide to cover up the scheme.

Jason Robert Daniels is charged with identity theft, multiple forms of fraud, and misuse of a Social Security number, according to a proposed plea agreement.

He allegedly stole the identity of his brother, Douglas Arvil Daniels, and used it to enlist in the Navy in Detroit in January 2008. Prior to that, he had been discharged from the Marine Corps for “disciplinary infractions.”

Once in the Navy, Jason Robert Daniels worked as a corpsman at a Naval hospital from Feb. 2008 to September 2009, during which time about $60,000 of wages was directly deposited into a bank account.

During this time, Jason Robert Daniels also used his brother’s identity to open bank accounts, get credit cards and personal loans, according to the plea agreement. Finally, he attempted to kill off his fake identity while leaving all his earnings to his true identity.

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A new Javelin report shows that identity fraud decreased sharply in 2010 after increasing for two years, according to eWeek. Unfortunately, it also shows that it costs more for victims to recover from the theft, as thieves focus on new account fraud and stealing from people they know.

Total card-related identity fraud in the United States dropped by a third from $56 billion in 2009 to $37 billion in 2010, according to a Javelin Strategy and Research survey. The total number of victims nationwide also dropped more than 26 percent, from 11 million in 2009 to 8.1 million in 2010, the report found.

However, victim’s losses, which include the costs of clearing up identity theft and covering some of the charges incurred by thieves, have shot up 63 percent, on average, from $387 in 2009 to $631 per incident in 2010, the report found.

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