Police: Alleged Credit Card Fraud Goes Up in Smoke

Collegeville Police Department reported the Dec. 18 arrest of two males, suspected in purchasing over $508.14 worth of cigarette cartons and over $1,123.10 in gift cards with allegedly stolen credit cards.

According to an affidavit of probable cause, at approximately 11:15 p.m. Collegeville Police was contacted about a suspicious purchase of several cartons of cigarettes at the Wawa, located at 1860 S. Collegeville Road, using a credit card. A police officer reported to have witnessed the cartons placed in the back of a silver Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

The car was next located at the Market Place Shopping Center in Collegeville. Two Collegeville Police officers waited for the two males to return to their vehicle. At approximately 11:30 p.m., an off-duty Voorhees Police officer, came out and made contact with the two Collegeville Police officers, who reported that he witnessed the two males inside Redner’s Market trying to purchase numerous Visa/Mastercard gift cards, using what would later be identified as several different Green Dot credit cards.

The Collegeville Police officers then entered the store and located the males at the front register, while reportedly making the gift card purchases, which included:

• Eight $100 MasterCard Gift Cards

• Two $100 Visa Gift Cards

• Two $30 Paylo Virgin Mobile cellular phone minutes

Collegeville Police contacted the financial institutions as listed on the back of the confiscated cards. The institutions replied that the card numbers were invalid.

According to the affidavit, the two males as Abdoulaye Barry, 24, of the 2200 block of W. Indiana Ave. in Philadelphia; and an 18-year-old male from Brooklyn, N.Y.

Further investigation of the cards at the Limerick Township Police Department revealed that the cards were fraudulent and were recoded with another person’s account information.

In addition to the charges of using debit/credit cards with financial information not their own, when the two males were detained and searched, marijuana and $1,007 in cash was also reported to have been located on one of the males.  

The two males were taken to Montgomery County Correction Facility.

While each had their own set of charges, some charges were the same, including forgery, criminal conspiracy to access device fraud, identity theft, theft by deception, receiving stolen property, and related charges.

More about ‘Green Dot’ Cards

According to www.greendot.com, Green Dot cards are reloadable prepaid cards. On the website’s front page, there is a warning for Green Dot card users to be wary of scams, and suggests that the prepaid card number or bank account information should never be given out unless, “you are 100-percent sure you know exactly who you are dealing with and it’s for a legitimate transaction.