The City of Cleveland is trying to determine who dumped the personal information of hundreds of northeast Ohio residents along the roadside on Train Avenue.
The personal information was strewn along a mile stretch of roadway, at five different dumping sites, and included; tax returns, mortgage information, canceled checks, addresses, social security numbers and more.
Rebecca Barker of Cleveland found the piles of documents and contacted newsnet5.com.
"And I said go oh my God, I can't believe there's boxes of this," said Barker. "How stupid can you be to get other people's future thrown out like trash."
"Wow I can't believe somebody would actually dump people's history. I mean they could ruin these people's lives."
NewsChannel 5 contacted the Cleveland mayor's office about the situation, and it quickly alerted the Cleveland Police Environmental Task Force about the case.
The city promised to secure the documents as quickly as possible and conduct a full investigation.
Cleveland clean-up crew leader David Reuse believes the documents could be from a financial institution, a title company or an attorney's office.
"No wonder there is such a big problem with identity theft," said Reuse. "Anybody comes down here and finds this stuff could case major issues."
"They just hired somebody to come clean-out their records and they come down here and they dispose like this the side of the road in five different locations."
Reuse confirmed dumping along Train Avenue has been a chronic problem for years.
Anyone with information on this case, or any other illegal dumping case is being asked to call Cleveland's dumping hotline at 216-664-DUMP (3867).
