DAYTON, ohio – A Secret Service investigation has led to a federal grand jury indictment against four men from Brazil in an ATM skimming conspiracy to defraud the United States. ATM skimming is a process that allows thieves to obtain cardholders’ personal identification information.
Yvonne DiCristoforo, Special Agent in Charge of the Cincinnati Field Office, Benjamin C. Glassman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, and members of the Miami Valley Bulk Smuggling Task Force announced the charges.
"The United States Secret Service will aggressively pursue criminals who attack the financial infrastructure of the United States, our banking institutions and the Dayton community," said Special Agent DiCristoforo. "We would like to thank the Miami Valley Bulk Smuggling Task Force and the Butler Township Police Department for their cooperation and partnership in this case."
According to court documents, in January 2018, Dayton law enforcement officials observed defendants conducting suspicious activity, which led them to conduct further surveillance of the group. Investigators discovered three laptop computers, a magnetic stripe credit card encoder and more than 400 counterfeit credit cards in possession of the defendants in the Miller Lane vicinity of Dayton.
The indictment details that the men rented vehicles in South Florida and traveled throughout various states, including North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.
While traveling, they received FedEx packages from South Florida that contained hundreds of counterfeit American Express, Master Card and Visa credit cards with pre-embossed alias names like "Richard Martin" and "Felipe Mello." The defendants then encoded information onto the magnetic strips on the counterfeit cards.
The defendants would also secretly install ATM skimming devices and pinhole cameras on commercial ATMs, it is alleged, in order to scan and obtain account names and numbers from unsuspecting credit and debit card holders.