Florida woman guilty of Alabama credit card skimming

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A Florida woman was found guilty of helping to orchestrate a multi-state scheme to use skimming devices on gas pumps to steal credit and debit card numbers, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced Tuesday.

Eunises Llorca-Menses, 30, of Naples, Fla. was found guilty by a federal jury Friday on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft in January. She faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

“This conviction should send a strong message to debit card skimmers seeking to target unsuspecting Alabamians: you will be caught and brought to justice,” Marshall said in a statement.

On February 15, 2017, Llorca Menses and her co-defendant Reiner Perez-Rives were charged. Perez-Rives pled guilty in July to conspiracy and identity theft charges.

As part of the scheme, Llorca-Menses and Perez-Rives, would rent vehicles and travel between Florida, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia. During their travels, they would visit several gas stations and install a skimming device inside gas pumps. Through the skimming device, they collected gas station customers’ credit/debit card information and used that information to activate or reactivate credit, debit, or gift cards, and make unauthorized ATM cash withdrawals at gas stations and purchases at several places around the Southeast.

Law enforcement officials uncovered the elaborate scheme following multiple reports from victims concerning the unauthorized use of their debit cards. Working with financial institutions, the Ozark Police Department, along with state and federal partners, discovered that many of the victims had used their cards at the same gas station in Ozark, Ala. At this station, they found a skimming device with Bluetooth capability installed on a gas pump. The Bluetooth technology allowed the defendants to collect a gas customer’s credit/debit information while sitting up to thirty-feet away from the gas pump.

At the time of their arrest on December 21, 2016, Llorca-Meneses and Peres-Rives were found to be in possession of thirty-nine credit/debit cards that had been re-encoded with stolen credit/debit card numbers, along with an additional 317 gift cards. A Wal-Mart gift card that contained the stolen account information from a victim’s Capital One credit card and a key used to gain access to the inside of a gas pump was found in Llorca-Meneses’ purse. Law enforcement also found a homemade device with connectors that matched the connections on the skimming device found in the gas pump in Ozark in their luggage.

“It is incredibly difficult for the average person to determine if a gas pump has a skimmer,” stated Acting U.S for the Middle District of Alabama A. Clark Morris. “This is because many are placed inside the gas pump with no visible evidence of tampering. While the crooks may be getting smarter, law enforcement continues to work hard to stay a step ahead. This conviction shows that our office will continue to work with our partners to identify criminals that seek to victimize our citizens.”

To avoid becoming a victim of this type of fraud, customers should pay inside the store or use pumps that are visible to store employees and video surveillance cameras. Criminals commonly target pumps that allow them to install skimming devices undetected.

This case was a joint investigation involving the Ozark Police Department, the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, the United States Secret Service, and the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Denise O. Simpson and Assistant United States Attorney Steven Lee prosecuted this case.