NORFOLK, Va. – A local woman last week pleaded guilty to skimming hundreds of credit or debit cards at the Norfolk Naval Station McDonald’s, many of them belonging to members of Navy FCU.
Sophia Jacobs, 25, pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Around December 2010 or January 2011, an alleged co-conspirator approached Jacobs and asked her if she wanted to make money by swiping customers’ credit cards, according to court documents. Jacobs agreed and would earn $10 for every card swiped.
Navy Federal began receiving reports of fraudulent transactions and noticed that many of the customers had made purchases at the same McDonald’s.
The crime was reported to the Naval Criminal Investigative Services, which installed hidden cameras at the base McDonald’s. Investigators observed Jacobs skim approximately 20 customers’ cards on April 20, 89 customers’ cards on April 26, and 101 customers’ cards on May 12.
After this, investigators determined that Jacobs met with defendant Tiquan Savary and one of the persons who recruited her to skim the cards in a drug store parking lot in Norfolk.
The conspirators used customer account information obtained by Jacobs to manufacture fraudulent and unauthorized credit and debit cards in the conspirators’ names and embossed with or electronically encoded with the victim customers’ account numbers. From December 2010 through June 2011, court records state the conspirators used the fraudulent credit and debit cards to buy gift cards and merchandise worth tens of thousands of dollars.
