Online Seller of Counterfeit Credit Cards Gets Prison Time

An Indiana man who manufactured counterfeit credit card game and sold them online was sentenced Friday to 14 old age in prison for wire fraud and aggravated identity operator larceny, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Tony Perez III, of Hammond, IN, pleaded guilty to the charges on April 4. In his plea, Perez same he sold-out counterfeit credit cards encoded with stolen account data. Perez found customers through criminal "carding forums," Internet discussion groups set sprouted to aid in the buying and selling of stolen financial account info and attendant services.

Perez, 21, regularly purchased or received stolen charge plate information on the Cyberspace, the DOJ same.

An undercover agent with the U.S. Secret Service contacted Perez after viewing an offer for unreal credit card game on MyMarket.ws, a sleep with carding forum, according to court documents. The broker purchased 20 counterfeit credit cards from Perez in May 2010 after talking to him on ICQ, court documents said.

During a June 2010 search of Perez's abode, Secret Service agents found 20,987 stolen credit card accounts on his computers, in his email messages, in an online account and along counterfeit recognition card game he was in the mental process of manufacturing, according to court documents. Credit card companies ingest reportable more than US$3.1 cardinal in deceitful charges associated with those accounts, court documents said.

Perez owned several pieces of equipment, including a printer, a heat stamp press and a charismatic stripe encoder, that allowed him to build counterfeit credit cards, court documents said. Perez was competent to make card game with about 100 different designs, and his card game included heat-ironed holograms, signature pads and ultraviolet printing, motor hotel documents said.

In increase to the prison term, Judge Liam O'Grady of U.S. Territory Court for the Eastern District of VA ordered Perez to pay $2.8 million in restitution and a $250,000 fine.

Grant Gross covers engineering and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG Intelligence Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's email address is grant_gross@idg.com.