BUSTED: Identity thief compares himself to Leonardo DiCaprio in "Catch Me If You Can"

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- He was the man behind an identity theft scheme -- and hundreds of credit cards were found in his home! So how'd he pull it off -- and how can YOU protect yourself?

"I went to apply for a couple of credit cards and got declined," John Becker said.

So, Becker called his bank, and found out someone had racked up more than $12,000 in charges on one credit card.

"I said 'why would you give me $12,000 worth of credit? And they said things started getting charged so fast that they ran up a $12,000 to $13,000 limit before the credit card company even realized what was going on," Becker said.

Dennis Sergeev - a Russian national, is the man responsible.

He stole the identities of more than 50 people, and accrued $40,000 in losses.

"He was active online. Claims he received the stolen identities online. That is what he lived off of. That was his only income," U.S. Postal Inspector Blance Alvarez said.

After finding hundreds of fraudulent credit cards in a P.O. Box owned by Sergeev -- postal inspectors arrested him.

"When we interviewed this defendant at his home, he confessed and compared himself to Leonardo DiCaprio in 'Catch Me if You Can,'" Alvarez said.

The movie features DiCaprio as a con artist who is always one step ahead of authorities.

"But instead of having flight attendants escorting him out -- he had female postal inspectors escorting him to jail," Alvarez said.

When inspectors searched Sergeev's home...

"We found a lot of credit cards in victims` names hidden all through that house," Alvarez said.

They also found stereos, cameras, TVs, phones and cash.

Some advice: No matter how old you are -- check your credit at least once a year to make sure your identity hasn't been stolen.

"Teenagers will take a picture of their driver`s license and put it on their Facebook page because they are proud. They don`t realize they are giving up their DOB, their address, their name -- which is very important. Identity thieves scour the internet looking for this information," Alvarez said.

"Luckily, not a lot of damage was done that would affect me. Luckily at that time I wasn`t going for a house or I wasn`t going for a car loan or anything of importance," Becker said.

If your identity has ever been stolen, you need to put a fraud alert on your credit right away.

The suspect in this case was arrested on federal ID theft charges and sentenced to three years in prison -- and then he'll be deported to Russia.