PHILADELPHIA – Three men were charged with providing waiters and waitresses at Ruby Tuesday's restaurants with credit card skimmers that were used to steal card information and make tens of thousands of dollars of unauthorized purchases in credit union and bank accounts.
The skimmers drained funds from accounts at Philadelphia FCU, Freedom FCU, Diamond CU, Navy FCU and about a dozen banks, according to an indictment handed down by a federal grand jury last week.
The scheme was apparently headed by Michael Lewis, Cantrell Fletcher, aka 'Man Man,' and Keith Persall, aka 'the goat,' who hired runners such as the waitresses and employees at Philadelphia hotels and retail stores to steal customers' card information. The leaders made the stolen data useable by using their computers to upload the information from the skimming devices, and then using an encoding device to record the stolen numbers onto the magnetic strips on the backs of other credit cards, debit cards, or plain white plastic cards.
Some of the items they purchased they kept for themselves, some they used to renovate their homes and cars, and some they used to pay their co-conspirators for their participation, according to the grand jury indictment.
