Andre Yoskowitz
7 Oct 2011 21:22
111 men and women were arrested tonight for their part in a massive identity theft ring.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown called the fraud case the largest he'd ever seen, and that the police were still seeking more to arrest. Five "criminal enterprises" were taken down, and theose arrested have been hit with hundreds of criminal charges.
The fraud, based in Queens, has been operating since at least 2010 and involved bank tellers, restaurant employees and other service employees.
Thousands were robbed from in a ring that stretched as far as China and the Middle East.
Like in past identity theft scams, the criminals would first steal the credit card numbers and relevant info when the customer paid, for example, for dinner at a restaurant. Those numbers were then passed on to "manufacturers" who forge forge Visas, MasterCards, Discover and American Express cards onto blank cards.
The forged cards would then be given to "shoppers," usually younger, pretty women who spend upwards of $1000 at a time at high-end luxury stores. That merchandise was then resold oversees to Chinese, European and the Middle Eastern customers.
$13 million was spent by the "shoppers" in the last year, alone.