The Los Angeles Times is reporting that California’s Department of Justice under State’s Attorney General Kamala Harris has begun an investigation into possible charges that Wells Fargo committed criminal identity theft in the opening of millions of fraudulent accounts over the last five years.
The warrant and related documents, served Oct. 5 and obtained by The Times through a public records request, confirm that California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, in the final weeks of a run for U.S. Senate, has joined the growing list of public officials and agencies investigating the bank in connection with the accounts scandal.
Harris’ office demanded the bank turn over a trove of information, including the identities of California customers who had unauthorized accounts opened in their names, information about fees related to those accounts, the names of the Wells Fargo employees who opened the accounts, the names of those employees’ managers and emails or other communication related to those accounts.
Harris’s office has also requested the same information from Californian Wells Fargo employees who opened accounts of customers in other states. The charges of identity theft may be the only possible charge being pursued or it might just be the one announced in order to get the search warrant needed to begin an investigation.
Wells Fargo’s troubles seem only to have begun a little over a month ago when they settled with the federal government for $185 million over these same charges. The news of this investigation comes only a week after former CEO John Stumpf resigned his position at the banking giant.
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