A Utah man who turned his Wendover hotel room into an ID forging factory was nabbed Friday at the Nugget casino according to police reports.
Christopher Pace, 41, of Sandy Utah is now in the Elko County Jail on a $120,000 bail bond following his arrest on six counts of Identity Theft.
According to police reports, Pace turned his hotel room at an undisclosed Wendover casino into a forging factory shortly after he checked in.
Staff alerted local police to Pace’s suspicious behavior, police obtained a search warrant and found what was described as “extensive amounts regarding to the manufacture of false identification”.
Pace however was nowhere to be seen but Utah man left his own id behind as he went to try his luck at the Wendover Nugget.
He was interviewed and subsequently arrested and transported to the Elko County Jail.
Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world and responsible in the loss of billions of dollars a year.
Dealing in cash, checks and booze and serving thousands of credit card using tourists every day casinos, including those in Wendover have been described as an identity thief’s paradise both to steal from and to find new victims.
To thwart would be ID thieves Nevada casinos are in the forefront of developing new and more sophisticated methods to track and catch ID theft.
Sometimes however for all the gadgets invented to steal and to catch a thief the surest are old school– such as an alert casino/hotel employee who notices something a bit off in a guest.
