May 2, 2007

NEWS: Diner Theft Ring Nabbed

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office issued a statement last week that provided more information about the ring of thieves that pilfered credit card information from several New York restaurant diners. The DA’s office indicted thirteen people in the scam, which involved victims from Chinatown and other areas -Brooklyn, Westchester, Long Island, Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Wait staff were using hand-held scammers to steal the card information. The DA’s office did not immediately make available a list of those restaurants where the scamming occurred

One of the thirteen defendants cited, JD Kenny, would pay $35-50 per skimmed card information, and then use that information to create fake cards. This process is called “cloning,” because it replicates the original copy of the card in question. Then, another group of people involved were drafted to actually take the new fake cards on a spending spree to purchase "high-end electronics merchandise – such as laptop computers, Sony Play Stations, GPS navigation systems, high-end digital cameras and IPods."

Authorities say that each illicit “shopper” was supposed to buy up at least $1000 worth of goods on the card. Yet another of the accused, Li-Chieh Pao, would pay the shopper 15% of the items' retail values for their efforts, and subsequently sell the goods via the black market to resale stores and pawn shops in Queens. The DA’s office stated that this was not the first time that wait staff in the city had carried out a credit card scam; similar plans were cooked up at Tenement in 2005, and at Les Halles last year.


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