My brother got pick-pocketed at the South Coast Plaza Mall in Costa Mesa 17 years ago. It took him about a half hour to realize what had happened and start canceling credit cards. Not surprisingly, the thief had already opened new credit cards in his name and charged a bunch of stuff to them. The thief got denied credit authorization at one store but was allowed to walk away.

Because it was a pick pocket, the police agreed to pursue it and figured out the thief's real identity. They showed up at the thief's door and asked for him by name. The guy who answered the door said that was his roommate and he wouldn't be back for a couple of hours. The police left but soon realized the guy who answered the door was the perp. They returned to the house a couple of hours later, but he had already fled.

That was the last my brother had heard of the matter until this year when he attempted to buy his first gun. The store ran a background check, and he came back a felon. My brother calls the Justice Department to ask what was going on. Two months later an attorney calls him back to give him the scoop: A warrant had been out for his arrest in three states for multiple felonies. The thief had repeat stints in prison. Each time he was tried and convicted under my brother's name and ss#. DOJ did some research and discovered my brother was clean after comparing thumb prints from the arrests and my brother's on file with the CA DMV. They approved the gun purchase today -- after the 10 day waiting period, of course.

My brother's doppleganger went off the grid when he got out of prison for the last time in the late 1990s, presumably after he assumed his own or someone else's identity. DOJ still doesn't know the real identity of the person who served the prison sentence. Awesome police work!