14 DAY TRIAL // A total of 23 people, suspected of being involved in a credit card counterfeiting scheme in which at least $2 million (€1.5 million) have been stolen from over 1,000 accounts, have been charged by authorities in the United States.
19 of them have been arrested in Flushing, Queens, while one of them has been detained in Los Angeles. One of the suspects is already in custody for other charges. The remaining two are still at large.
The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York reveals that the fraudsters obtained payment card information either by hacking into computers or by purchasing it from specialized cybercrime websites.
The stolen data was used to manufacture counterfeit credit and debit cards. Then, the fraudsters went on a nationwide shopping spree, making purchases from various stores in Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North Carolina.
They bought gift cards, electronics, clothing, cosmetics and other merchandise, which they sold to co-conspirators. These co-conspirators either sold the items or had them exchanged for refunds.
The scheme took place between at least June 2013 and December 2013.
The defendants, aged between 22 and 55 (authorities don’t know the ages of three of them), are all from Flushing, Queens. They’ve been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and one count of aggravated identity theft.
They could be sentenced to up to 7.5 years for the conspiracy count and 2 years for the identity theft count.
“As alleged, the defendants used classic cyber-crime techniques of computer intrusions and accessing carding websites to obtain account numbers and then rake in millions of dollars through shopping sprees funded by counterfeit credit cards created with the stolen personal account numbers,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
“Today’s arrests are a testament to our continued commitment to prosecuting cyber and identity theft crimes and holding the perpetrators of them to account.”