Con Man Antonio Perez-Martinez Convicted in Gas Pump Skimming Scheme

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN — Antonio DeJesus Perez-Martinez, the 44-year-old ringleader of a gas-pump skimming and identity theft ring that stretched from Texas to Michigan, was convicted on all charges by a jury last Thursday. The scheme, which involved over a dozen participants at its peak, targeted unsuspecting consumers filling up their tanks.

Perez-Martinez, a Cuban citizen with a ‘green-card,’ faces a maximum of 30 years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire-fraud, credit account fraud, and aggravated identity theft. His sentencing is scheduled for May 15th before Chief Judge Robert J. Jonker.

The trial revealed that Perez-Martinez recruited recently-arrived Cuban citizens into the scheme, using them to obtain compromised credit-account data online, encode it onto cards, and buy bulk gift cards with the cloned cards. By Summer 2015, they had progressed to using skimming devices installed in gas-pumps to steal account information without alerting the cardholder.

Seven of the eight defendants charged in the case have already been sentenced, ranging from 21 months to 37 months in prison for their roles in the scheme. Juan Estrada-Galvez was allowed to plead guilty to a state misdemeanor after his minimal involvement was acknowledged.

‘Identity-theft is a continually expanding and especially pernicious form of property crime,’ Acting U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge warned, ‘and this pump-skimmer scheme targets every citizen doing one of the most basic things: putting gas in our tanks. Any person caught up in such a crew had better understand the consequences.’

‘Criminals who engage in these types of plots exploit and manipulate technology that we depend on for secure financial transactions,’ David P. Gelios, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Division of the FBI, added. ‘Such high-tech criminal activity does not go unnoticed or unpunished.’