Baggage Handler Jailed For CU CardFraud

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - (10/31/05) -- A former United Airlines baggagehandler at Dulles International Airport was sentenced last week tomore than five years behind bars for stealing more than 2,000credit cards--most of them mailed by credit unions--from the maildocks at the airport. Emmanuel Osho, 49, was also ordered to pay$3.7 million in restitution, the amount he and his accomplicesstole using the cards. All of the financial losses were absorbed by56 credit unions and seven card companies. Among the credit unionhit were: Marriott Employees FCU, Northern Piedmont FCU and NewHorizon FCU. Osho, a Nigerian immigrant, pleaded guilty in July ofa scheme by which he stuffed huge quantities of mail into a blackduffel bag and drove the letters to co-conspirators in New Yorkwhere the cards were used by 'strikers' to get fraudulent cashadvances at credit unions and banks in about 100 towns along theEast Coast. Four accomplices, all of them also Nigerian immigrants,have pleaded guilty in the scheme.