$200M Credit Card Heist Lands NY Man In Prison

In a credit card fraud scheme that made headlines, a New York man was sentenced in New Jersey for leading a ring that scammed cardholders out of as much as $200 million.

Tahir Lodhi, who pleaded guilty for being part of a conspiracy to commit bank fraud, was ordered by a Trenton, NJ judge to spend 80 months behind bars. The accused worked with co-conspirators to create thousands of fake identities to gather up what The Olympian, citing the Associated Press, said were tens of thousands of credit cards. The criminal ring ran up $200 million in charges that were ultimately never repaid.

The criminals also created sham companies that were used to buy credit card terminals that would process the charges, fostering a vicious cycle, wherein information would be reported to credit bureaus in continued efforts to gather up ever-larger credit limits on new cards.

The push toward adopting and promoting these fake identities meant Lodhi and his peers also created “drop addresses,” numbering more than 1,800 and ranging from post office boxes to houses, to help maintain the fake identities. In addition, the false identities were legitimized by stating that they were employees of the aforementioned false companies.

[bctt tweet=”The push toward adopting and promoting these fake identities meant Lodhi and his peers also created drop addresses.”]

Further, the companies worked with what authorities said were “complicit” businesses to carry out their plan, linking up with several jewelry stores in New Jersey. The stores would let the members of the credit card fraud ring conduct phony transactions on the fraudulent cards and then split the proceeds.

Several of the conspirators had not reported legitimate employment for the last several years, according to Labor Department records.