Luis Angel Naranjo Rodriguez, Wire Fraud, Massachusetts 2019

Florida Man Pleads Guilty to Gas Station Skimming Scheme in Boston

BOSTON – A Florida man pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Boston to his role in a scheme to steal thousands of customers’ debit and credit card account numbers, and other personally identifying information, via a network of electronic skimming equipment at gas stations across New England.

Luis Angel Naranjo Rodriguez, 32, of Hialeah, Fla., pleaded guilty to eight counts of wire fraud, four counts of bank fraud, four counts of aggravated identity theft, one count of possessing 15 or more counterfeit or unauthorized access devices, and one count of possessing device-making equipment.

Naranjo Rodriguez secretly installed card skimming devices in gas pumps in Massachusetts gas stations and in other New England states. The devices were programmed to send Naranjo Rodriguez’s mobile phone a text message with stolen account information after customers had used their debit or credit cards to purchase gas at the compromised fuel pumps.

Card skimming devices linked to Naranjo Rodriguez’s mobile phone were traced to at least 11 different gas stations located in Lynnfield, Concord, Malden, Taunton, Randolph, and Raynham, Mass.; Portland, Maine; Nashua, N.H.; and Willington, Conn.

Between April 2019 until November 2019, Naranjo Rodriguez traveled frequently from Florida to Massachusetts to maintain this network of card skimmers. During the course of the scheme, Naranjo Rodriguez’s mobile phone received at least 4,878 text messages containing stolen debit and credit card account numbers. Many of these text messages also included the account holders’ names and Personal Identification Numbers (PINs).

Naranjo Rodriguez cloned the account information belonging to the unwitting victims onto gift cards and other prepaid cards in order to steal money from them, typically by using the cloned cards to make ATM withdrawals, to purchase consumer goods that could be resold in secondary markets, and to request cash back on debit card transactions.

Naranjo Rodriguez was arrested on Nov. 16, 2019, at the Concord Rotary Gulf gas station, where he was tampering with a fuel pump after the gas station had closed. In Naranjo Rodriguez’s car, four cloned cards from the ATM withdrawals earlier that night were found, along with fuel pump keys, black latex gloves, four card skimming devices, and the mobile phone that was receiving the text messages with the stolen credit and debit card account numbers.

Naranjo Rodriguez is scheduled to be sentenced on May 11, 2023.

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