Identity Theft Ring Hit with Credit Card Fraud Indictment

A federal grand jury indicted six Americans for operating an identity theft ring designed to commit credit card and debit card fraud, the Department of Justice announced this week.

Travon Williams, 33, of Portsmouth, Va.; Rodriquez Norman, 29, of Temple Hills, Md.; Nathaneal Williams, 25, of Manassas, Va.; and Marvin Mitchell, 33, Gentle Grant Tyson III, 32, and Ebony Coe, 29, all of whom are from Virginia Beach, Va. were charged with three criminal counts.

The indictment encompassed conspiring to commit bank and wire fraud, conspiring to traffic in contraband cigarettes, and aggravated identity theft. The bank and wire fraud charges carry a potential maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, while the aggravated identity theft charges carry a potential mandatory term of two years in prison.

The ID theft ring allegedly purchased thousands of stolen credit card and debit card numbers and then encoded that information, along with identities belonging to real people, onto forged credit cards, the DOJ claims. With these cards, the group purchased valuable items, including cartons of cigarettes, which were then resold on the black market for $47 per carton, the DOJ states.

Read more about the ID theft ring here.