Agency warns of possible passport breach

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The State Department has notified almost 400 passport applicants in the Washington, D.C. area that its database security had been breached, allowing a group of criminals to obtain private information and use it to acquire credit cards, the department said Friday.

The scheme, involving both the State Department and Postal Service, was discovered by accident. According to documents filed in U.S. district court, police officers were on a routine patrol in late March when they stopped a suspicious vehicle because the windows were excessively tinted in violation of city law.

After smelling marijuana, the officers searched the car and found 21 credit cards not in the driver's name, and the printouts of eight passport applications, four of which matched the names on the credit cards.

An on-scene check with American Express revealed some of the cards in question had recently been used and American Express had placed a "fraud alert" on the them, the documents said.