Leader Jailed in International Cards Ring

TUCSON – A 21-year-old man believed to be one of the leaders of an international identity theft ring was sentenced Friday to seven years in jail for his role in an Internet scheme that drained more than $1 million from credit union and bank accounts. Jacob Green-Bressler was among 17 conspirators who obtained credit and debit card information via the Internet from all over the globe–including Vietnam, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Russia, Canada, Mexico and Morocco–then used it to forge phony cards that were used to withdraw funds from customers at DM FCU, M&I Bank and Bank One (now JP Morgan Chase). In one instance, in March 2005, Green-Bressler and two accomplices used one of the cards to withdraw $148,000 at nearby Casino Del Sol. The conspirators, most of them under 25 years old, paid the overseas suppliers of the information a commission, generally less than 50%, of their earnings, prosecutors said. The ring produced and used more than 4,500 accounts during the scheme. The suspects lived in two houses in Tucson and made counterfeit cards by using blank cards and encoding the magnetic stripes with the stolen information. Before being sentenced, defense lawyers introduced a letter to the judge from Green-Bressler’s parents saying his computer skills were so great that he was offered a job at Microsoft at the age of 12.