Cuban crime family arrested in Houston-area credit card scam

Cuban crime family arrested in Houston-area credit card scam

  June 24, 2011    Dapper_Don

---

Blanca Valero-Morejon (upper left); Anet Valero-Morejon (upper center); Anna Lizeth Torres (upper right); Maikel Valdes (lower left); Livan Moya (lower right)

Five members of a Cuban organized crime group have been arrested in Houston, accused of stealing credit card numbers and using them to commit fraud, Fort Bend County investigators said.

Anet Valero-Morejon, 37; Blanca Valero-Morejon, 38; Maikel Valdes-Amaro, 30; Anna Lizeth Torres, 25; and Livan Tagle Moya, 39, are all charged with engaging in organized criminal activity.
Investigators said they received a tip in late April that the group, many of whom are blood-related, had obtained credit card numbers through dump sites on the Internet.
Once they secured those numbers, the group would produce new credit cards.
With new cards in hand, members of the group would go to stores like Walmart and Target and purchase large amounts of gift cards, ranging in value from $50 to $200, and sell them on the street at discounted prices, investigators said.
Detectives executed a search and arrest warrant at a home in the Mission Glen subdivision on June 9.
In the home, they said they found four rooms set up with embossing machines, re-encoding devices and computers – all equipment used to make new credit cards.
In addition, deputies said they seized $8,000 in cash, flash drives and discs with thousands of stolen credit card numbers on them and more than 900 re-encoded cards.
During their investigation, investigators said they learned the group was also involved in stealing diesel fuel with fraudulent cards.
Those purchases were always under $100, so the cards would not be flagged. The diesel was then sold at construction sites and trucking companies at a reduced price, investigators said.
The estimated loss from both operations is about $500,000, but with further investigation, deputies said it could top the $1 million mark.
The Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office was assisted by the Stafford Police Department and investigators with Discovery Card Service and Murphy USA.

http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Deputies-Cuban-crime-family-arrested-in-credit-card-scam-124507209.html