New York Waiters Arrested for Credit Card Fraud and Identity Theft
13 New York waiters were arrested for stealing customer’s credit information. Authorities say that waiters at about forty restaurants, in New York and elsewhere, collected customers’ credit card information and passed it on to people who used the information to make more than $3 million worth of illegal purchases.
This was apparently an organised effort. Some members of the group stole customers’ information, some made counterfeit cards, others shopped for merchandise, and finally someone bought the goods for cash.
Police say that when the ringleader was arrested for identity theft, police found 296 fake credit cards, $200,000 in cash, and a stack of Rolex watches in his home.
Leaders of the conspiracy recruited waiters and gave them handheld “skimmers” that read and collected information from a credit card’s magnetic strip. The waiters were paid only about $35 to $50 per night for stealing the data.