BRATTLEBORO, VT – A sophisticated credit card fraud operation stretching across the Eastern United States has landed three New Yorkers in federal court. Wen Ping Chen, 39, of Brooklyn, was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison for orchestrating the scheme, while his lower-level associates, Kewang Lin, 38, and Shao Qing Chen, 28, both also of Brooklyn, received terms of probation. The ring targeted unsuspecting diners, skimming their credit card information and turning it into cold, hard cash.
The case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Waples, began to unravel in August 2014 when Shao Chen and Lin were arrested in South Burlington, Vermont, caught red-handed with counterfeit cards and a stash of fraudulently obtained gift cards. Investigators recovered over 80 counterfeit access devices and thousands of dollars in gift cards, revealing a much larger operation at play. The pair immediately pled guilty to credit card related crimes.
According to court records and the initial indictment returned in October 2015, Wen Ping Chen masterminded the scheme. He recruited young men and women, promising them easy money in exchange for their participation. Chen’s method was chillingly efficient: he dispatched his recruits to secure waitressing jobs at Chinese restaurants outside of New York City. Equipped with credit card skimming devices provided by Chen, these servers silently stole customer data while on the job. That stolen data was then used to create counterfeit credit cards.
Chen then dispatched another group of recruits – young men – to travel from New York to states including Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Their mission: to use the counterfeit cards to purchase gift cards, which were then resold on a black market for profit. The Vermont bust was just one stop on a multi-state shopping spree. Chen, arrested in 2014, was initially released pending further investigation, but ultimately faced the full weight of the law.
U.S. District Judge J. Garvan Murtha sentenced Chen to a year plus one day in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Lin and Shao Chen avoided jail time, but were both sentenced to probation. All three defendants were ordered to pay a total of $25,600 in restitution to cover the losses incurred by their victims. Chen is scheduled to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on April 4th to begin serving his sentence. The investigation was a collaborative effort between the South Burlington Police Department, the United States Secret Service, and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Defense counsel Paul Brenner represented Wen Ping Chen; Stacey Van Malden defended Shao Chen; and Edgar Fankbonner represented Kewang Lin. This case serves as a stark reminder of the pervasive threat of credit card fraud and the lengths to which criminals will go to exploit unsuspecting consumers. The Secret Service continues to investigate similar schemes nationwide, working to dismantle these operations and bring the perpetrators to justice.
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Key Facts
- Agency: U.S. Secret Service
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: Official Press Release
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