TAMPA, Fla. Two men on Friday were sentenced to prison for an identity theft scheme that drained more than $60,000 from cardholders at several financial institutions, most of it from accounts at Solidarity Community FCU in Kokomo, Ind.
The Tampa Police Department was alerted to the case in December 2010, when a Kokomo detective said many bogus charges from accounts at Solidarity were coming from various Walgreens stores in Tampa. At least 16 Solidarity accounts were compromised.
Tampa police recovered surveillance video from the stores, which identified the two suspects, Juan Amores and Miranda Portes, on video using stolen and/or counterfeit credit and debit cards.
Tampa police obtained a spreadsheet of fraudulent transactions that Solidarity had identified as occurring in the Tampa area. The records showed that Amores, Portes and their co-conspirators used stolen and counterfeit credit cards to make many small purchases, often at the same time, to avoid detection.
The co-conspirators traveled to multiple retail establishments in the same area to make consecutive purchases. Most often, they purchased gift cards with the stolen credit or debit card numbers.
Law enforcement identified more than 50 victims of identity theft as a result of this scheme.
Amores was sentenced to seven years and three months in federal prison and Portes to five years. They also were ordered to forfeit the proceeds of the fraud.
