Posted on Saturday, 15th October 2011 by Archie Norton
Police have made one of the biggest identity theft bust of its kind in U.S. history. The crimes resulted in a $13 million dollar crime ring specializing mainly in selling Apple electronics overseas.
Authorities said “Operation Swiper” indicted 111 people from five criminal enterprises in Queens, New York.
“The schemes and the imagination of these thieves is mind boggling,” said New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly at a press conference.
“These crimes are getting more sophisticated and thieves have amazing knowledge of how to use technology,” Kelly said.
The crime rings ran nationwide shopping sprees in which “crew leaders” oversaw “shoppers” and thieves conducted their business from five-star hotels, renting luxury cars and private jets.
Bosses of each crime ring received blank credit cards from suppliers in Russia, Libya, Lebanon and China.
The bosses then hired “skimmers” who posed for jobs such as waiters and retail shop workers so they could use electronic devices to steal information from customer credit cards. That information was then sent to a “manufacturer” who programed the information into the magnetic strips of blank credit cards.
The crime rings also used card printing machines to forge credit cards and state driver’s licenses to match them.
“They can actually make a license from any state in the union, print credit cards of any color and even put the holograms on there,” said NYPD deputy inspector Gregory Antonsen.
Police then said “shoppers” in the crime rings would use the forged credit cards and IDs to go on weekly shopping sprees around the U.S. at retailers such as Nordstrom’s, Macy’s, Gucci and Best Buy and sell those items mostly to people overseas.
But by far, Antonsen said, thieves spent the most time buying computer products from Apple.
“This is primarily an Apple case,” Antonsen said. “Apple is a big ticket item and a very easy sell.”
Antonsen added forged credit cards were easy for criminals to make here because U.S. credit cards are less sophisticated than those in Europe, where fraud of this magnitude would have been much more difficult.
The indicted individuals are charged with crimes ranging from identity theft and forging credit cards to robbery. Police said 86 of the 111 people indicted for the crimes are currently in police custody and the remaining 25 were being sought.
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Tags: History, Identity Theft, Identity Theft Bust, Theft Bust
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