An employee at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Miami has been charged with selling the personal identities of disabled patients who receive services at the hospital, authorities said Wednesday.

Tarakesha Kendrick, 32, of Miami, will be arraigned Monday on charges of aggravated identity theft and unlawfully selling the personal information of at least 22 military veterans, according to a federal indictment filed Tuesday.

The investigation into alleged ID theft began last year when the VA’s Office of Inspector General received several complaints from veterans who reported their identities had been stolen and unauthorized credit card accounts opened in their names at Citibank, authorities said.

In late 2010, investigators made an arrest in a credit-fraud probe and the suspect said he had a contact at the VA Medical Center in Miami who supplied personal identity information, according to a criminal complaint by the inspector general’s office.

That led to Kendrick, who was employed at the medical center’s Travel Benefits Section, the complaint said. The section reimburses disabled veterans for travel expenses related to their medical treatment. Kendrick had access to their personal information, such as names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers, the complaint said.

In May and September of this year, an undercover agent arranged to meet with Kendrick to buy six VA patients’ identities for $180 and then 16 more for $120, according to the criminal complaint. The cash transactions were recorded by law enforcement on audio and video equipment.

U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer, who has expanded a federal ID-theft task force from Miami-Dade to Broward to zero in on the escalating problem, said the schemes are “particularly reprehensible when they target our veterans seeking medical care.”

Similar patient-identity theft schemes have struck Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale and Jewish Community Services in North Miami, among other healthcare facilities.

In recent years, Miami’s VA Medical Center has been the focus of a different controversy. In 2009, the Veterans Administration announced that about 2,500 Miami-area veterans may have been exposed to disease through colonoscopies they got with improperly cleaned equipment at the hospital.

Last month, the head of the facility was ousted from her job.