The alleged leader of a $200m credit card scheme that involved 25,000 fraudulent credit cards has pleaded guilty in court.
For more than nine years, Tahir Lodhi and a gang of at least 21 men and women from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania created more than 7,000 fake identities to boost credit lines and obtain large loans that were never repaid.
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More than 1,800 phony addresses, which included houses, apartments and post boxes, were used as the mailing addresses of the false identities.
The gang obtained credit card terminals for the dozens of fake companies they invented and then ran up charges on the fraudulent cards.
According to authorities, millions of dollars had supposedly been wired overseas to countries such as Pakistan, India, the United Arab Emirates and China.
Paul Fishman, a US attorney, said: "This type of fraud increases the costs of doing business for every American consumer, every day. Lodhi hurt not only the credit card issuers, but everyone who pays increased interest rates and fees because of the money sucked out of the system by criminals."
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By GlobalDataLodhi faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and a fine of $1m. His sentencing is scheduled for October.
Another recent card fraud case saw eight people accused of hacking into over a dozen financial institutions in a bid to steal at least $15m.
Money was diverted from customer accounts to prepaid and debit accounts the group controlled, before being withdrawn through ATMs and purchases.
The group managed to hack into the computer systems of Aon Hewitt; Automated Data Processing; Citibank; E-Trade; Electronic Payments; Fundtech; iPayment; JP Morgan Chase; Nordstrom Bank; PayPal; TD Ameritrade; US Department of Defense, Defense Finance and Accounting Service; TIAA-CREF; USAA; and Veracity Payment Solutions.
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