Troy Maye And Tiwanna Tenise Thomason Arrested For Identity Theft After Posting Instagram Photo

This Instagram Photo Got Two People Arrested

Sure, Instagramming your food in a restaurant is annoying, but it usually doesn't lead to anyone's arrest.

However, in the case of two suspected identify thieves, it did. Troy Maye and Tiwanna Tenise Thomason caught the IRS's eye when they bragged about all of the identities they had allegedly stolen. And an Instagram photo helped police pin them to the crime, reports the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

At a restaurant called YOLO in Fort Lauderdale, an IRS tipster heard that a man who went by "Troy" was saying that he had 700,000 stolen identities he wanted to sell. Later, Troy and Thomason met up with an undercover IRS agent at a Morton's Steakhouse to allegedly sell a flash drive filled with stolen identities. During the transaction, Troy took a photo of his meal and posted it to the Instagram account @TroyMaye with the caption "Morton's."

The IRS found the name Troy Maye on the flash drive, found the Instagram account in question, and was able to link Maye to the steakhouse on the night of the transaction, leading to his and Thomason's arrests. They now face up to 12 years in prison.

This is the first time an Instagram photo has been used as judicial evidence, the New York Daily News reports.

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