New York City law enforcement is really cracking down on identity theft and credit card fraud crime. Several highly publicized arrests have been made in the past two weeks in which dozens of defendants have been charged with various crimes related to identity theft and credit card fraud. Yesterday a five-member family of Pakistani immigrants residing in Queens and seven others have been indicted in Queens Supreme Court for running a massive fraudulent credit card/bust-out scheme.
A bust out scheme is a type of credit card fraud in which bad check are deposited into a credit card account in order to boost the card’s credit limit. Then, before the check bounces, which takes a few days, the card is used to make purchases in the amount exceeding the real credit limit.
In this Queens case, the Chaudhry family, including parents and their two sons, and an uncle, allegedly applied for hundreds of credit cards using bogus or fraudulent information, including stolen names and Social Security cards. When the cards were received, they were “busted” and used to purchase cell phones and electronics, mostly from P.C. Richards which then were shipped to Pakistan and sold. In all, over $100,000 has been stolen from P.C. Richards.
Additionally, according to the indictment, the Chaudhrys simply stole the money by taking cash advances at banks or by working with crooked store owners who “ghost swiped” the cards (cards being swiped but no merchandise sold) and then gave the Chaudhrys back in cash a percentage of the amount charged, usually about 80 %.
Most defendants are charged with second- and third-degree grand larceny, first-degree falsifying business records, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, first-degree offering a false instrument for filing, first-degree tampering with public records, petit larceny and first-degree scheme to defraud and faces up to 15 years in prison. Most are held in Rikers Island without bail.
