DC-Area Card-Skimming Ring Leader Indicted

A federal grand jury today indicted Gabriel Camara, 36, of Washington D.C., of one count of conspiring to commit bank fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft for his role in leading a card-skimming scheme that targeted customers of restaurants in the Washington, D.C.-metro area.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Jeffrey Irvine, Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service, made the announcement. If convicted, Camara faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison for conspiracy and two years for each of the aggravated identity theft counts.

According to the indictment, from January 2008 through May 2009, Camara paid servers at restaurants in the Washington, D.C.-metro area – including the Cheesecake Factory, PGA Tour Grill, and the Outback Steakhouse – to obtain credit card numbers of paying customers. He and a co-conspirator, Nicole Ward, provided the servers with skimmers that captured and stored credit card numbers. The servers and Ward delivered skimmers loaded with credit card numbers to Camara, who encoded the skimmed numbers onto various cards. He then gave the re-encoded cards to other co-conspirators, who used them to make purchases at wholesale club stores in Northern Virginia and elsewhere. Ward, 28, of Washington D.C., pled guilty on July 30, 2010, to conspiring to commit bank fraud and will be sentenced on Oct. 29, 2010.

This case was investigated by the United States Secret Service. Assistant United States Attorneys Kosta Stojilkovic and Jack Hanly are prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

The charges contained in the indictment are merely accusations and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

via Leader of DC-Area Card-Skimming Case Indicted : NOVA Business News.

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Posted by admin on Aug 9 2010. Filed under Northern Virginia News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.