• 29
  • November
    2011

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office, working in conjunction with the New York Secret Service Field Office and New York Police Commissioner, recently announced that they have recovered over $2 million of stolen property in a credit card and identify theft scheme involving restaurants in three northeastern states.

Twenty-eight individuals were indicted in the scheme and charged with multiple counts of conspiracy, grand larceny, enterprise corruption and other felonies. The fraud investigation started at Capital Grille steakhouse in New York and branched into restaurants in New Jersey and Connecticut as well.

According to NY District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., waiters at expensive restaurants used handheld credit card skimmers to steal credit card information. When restaurant patrons provided their credit card to their waiter, the waiter used a skimmer to store their information.

While most credit card skimming scams simply result in the skimmed numbers being used to make online purchases, this particular scheme took it to the next level. Using the credit card information in the skimmer, actual physical credit cards were counterfeited. In some cases, fake driver's licenses were also created to back up the cards.

Using the counterfeit cards and ids, those indicted allegedly bought goods from luxury stores across the nation - including in Boston, Chicago and Florida. A number of these luxury goods were re-sold on eBay. During the course of the investigation, law enforcement authorities recovered over $1 million in cash and another $1.2 million in expensive wines and watches.

At least 50 Amex credit card numbers were stolen in the scheme. According to NY Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, American Express reimbursed the victim for their losses.

Source: TPM.com, "New York Authorities Announce Credit Card Fraud Bust," 11/18/11.