Oups,
Jamie just filled me in on the registry theft. So has nothing to do with a compromise of an email account. Sorry, my bad.
Reminds me of an emerging trend that was starting when I left the fraud department at a bank; mortgage fraud.Here is something about that: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/mortgage-fraud/
For those who really worry about this (I saw in another thread where a webmaster had to pay 32k to buy back his domain name) I suggest you look at identity theft insurance. What you are looking for is something to cover the legal fees.