A brand new, statewide team was just launched.

One of the unit's first raids was launched in Kent.

Troopers, federal agents and local police are on the move and an identity theft suspect is about to get a rude awakening.

Over a bullhorn troopers shout, "State Patrol, we have a search warrant to enter this residence."

The troopers and officers use a battering ram to break into the home.

This type of raid is normally reserved for people accused of violent crimes, but this is the new tactic in the battle against identity theft. The state patrol says the show of force is necessary because ID thieves are often into other crimes prone to violence.

Neighbor Bob Riger says, "I liken ID theft to bank robbery."

Neighbors say identity theft has grown so quickly they approve of these strong-arm tactics.

"Given the information that I've seen on a lot of these ID theft people, a lot of them are drug users and trying to further their drug use with profits from people -- legitimate working people," says Riger.

In this case they're looking for a 46-year-old woman suspected of stealing mail, taking the checks and the account numbers and cashing $2,000 in false checks.

Detectives know of at least one victim and there could be more. They also claim the suspect has a state patrol ID card and even a state patrol badge.

ID theft is considered a huge problem here. The state patrol says Washington is 10th in the nation in this type of crime. But despite their best efforts, when they raided her home Thursday morning the suspect wasn't there.

Trooper Kelly Spangler says, "There's a warrant out for this person's arrest at this point since they weren't here. We're going to collect the clues as we go and we're going to continue to pursue this person until we catch them."

The State Patrol is taking this on because it has statewide jurisdiction.

Identity theft investigations often get stymied because they cross jurisdictional lines. This solves that problem.

And even though the suspect hasn't been caught yet, they say this raid was a success. It announces loud and clear that there's a new statewide squad that is coming down hard on identity thieves.