February 16,2009
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News: First Heartland Breach Suspects Apprehended.
Finally, some new developments in the credit card data heist at Heartland last month that affected so many millions of Americans. Three suspects have been apprehended in Tallahassee, Florida red handed with forged credit cards emulating those stolen in the heist. Aged from 20 to 21 years of age, these three are not deemed to part of any ‘master-mind' network. That black market credit card network has, thus far, only been identified by their location in Eastern Europe.
The three thieves, 21-year old Timothy John; and 20-year olds Jeremy Frazier and Tony Acreus, were just picked up in Tallahassee on several charges including: Electronically encoding Visa Gift Cards with stolen credit-card data, illegally making purchases with those cards and then selling that ill-bought merchandise for cash. The credit card fraud activities all took place in the Tallahassee vicinity, predominantly at Wal*Mart stores. Summed estimates by police of fraudulent charges are over $100,000. So, in addition to the other charges, these man are also being charges with grand theft.
The major significance in this case is the fact that these are the first arrests that are connected with the major credit card hacking attack back in November. This investigation has been on-going between the and the US Secret Service, the Leon County Sheriff's Office and Tallahassee Police Dept. since about that time. The breach was alleged to have taken place over the month of November but was not made public until Inauguration Day on January 20.
Since Heartland Payment Systems processes about 100 million credit card transactions every month, it was estimated that 100 million transactions were compromised. The assumption is that the breach only occurred for the one month. News of whether more than one month was involved has not yet been released.
So far, over 220 credit card lenders have been notified that some of their clients have been affected. This is the first news, however, of any use of that stolen data. That's why it's so important. It's a prime lead back to the perpetrators of the heist. For more on the original story, please refer to the news report entitled: "So, What Happened at Heartland?"