Three Arrested for Gas Station Identity Theft
Albert Jose Gonzalez, 39, of Lancaster, Josue Gustavo Albizuras, 42, of Los Angeles, and Cesar Vasquez Echeverria, 28, of Santa Clarita were all arrested after a three year investigation by the L.A. County Sheriff’s and the FBI. They all face several counts of conspiracy, identity theft, grand theft and computer access fraud. If they are convicted on all counts they could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison each.
The three were caught in a very sophisticated scheme that involved placing card skimmers on gas station pumps. The card skimming device is usually place over the existing card reader built into the pump and will record your cards information into its internal memory. The criminals would them show back up to download the information from the skimmers. The people using the pumps would be none the wiser and the criminals would be free to place charges on their credit and debit cards.
At the time of the arrest the police recovered 10,000 credit and debit card numbers from the accused. They also confiscated computers, cellphones, digital storage devices, and equipment they used to make fake credit and debit cards. $40,000 in cash and high end vehicles including a new Porsche and a Ferrari were also recovered. The criminals stole an estimated $2 million from their victims.
This is just another example on how careful you need to be when using your credit and debit cards. You should always inspect the card reader to make sure nothing is placed over it. Also make sure the card reader doesn’t wobble or move when you push on it. If it does you should just go to a different gas station just to be sure. Scams like this are happening all over the country and you don’t want to be a victim so be smart and know what to look for.
Tags: card, gas stations, ID theft, identity theft, Skimmers
