Multiple Arrests Made For Planting Skimmers In Jewish Stores In Brooklyn
by CrownHeights.info
In two separate incidents this week, multiple arrests were made of people wanted for planting skimmers in Jewish stores, including multiple stores in Crown Heights.
The men, suspected of being part of an elaborate crime ring that stole thousands of EBT card information from local stores, were finally caught and will now have to face the music to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen.
In the first incident Tuesday, two men were tracked down and arrested after they attempted to pick up skimmers planted in Moishe’s Grocery in Flatbush. The second, along similar lines, happened today in Williamsburg as three men looked to pick up a skimmer they had planted yesterday at Rosemary Supermarket in Williamsburg. They were followed by Shomrim and eventually stopped by the police on the Pulaski Bridge.
One of those stopped in today’s incident matched images published by Crown Heights Shomrim of the men who planted the skimmers in Crown Heights as well.
Over the last month, tens, if not hundreds of Crown Heights families as well as many others across the Jewish world, discovered that their Food Stamp money, provided by the government to help them feed their families, had been stolen.
Going as far back as months, this group of criminals had begun placing skimmers in Crown Heights, as well as many other neighborhood’s, grocery stores. The skimmers used in Crown Heights were a sophisticated version of skimmer tools that have been used by scammers and thieves for many years. These sophisticated versions involved a keypad that looks identical, to the detail, to the cover of the payment terminals that are installed in local stores. With their thin profile, they are almost impossible to detect, unless a knowledgeable person is looking for them. Under their thin demeanor though lies the great danger.
A thin magnetic reader at the mouth of the card slot records the magnetic strip as the victim inserts their card. Small buttons found under the keys of the skimmer record the PIN numbers as they are typed in. Now in possession of your information, a Bluetooth transmitter stands ready to transmit the recorded information, along with hundreds of others, to a person who stops outside the store and uploads it to their computer. And just like that, the thieves now had all your information.
With the help of alert store owners who were notified of the threat, as well as Crown Heights Shomrim, at least two skimmers were discovered in real-time as the scammers were being placed in Crown Heights grocery stores. Since then, all stores have been on high alert, and skimmers were found in grocery stores such as Pomegranate in Flatbush and stores in Rockland County.
During this time, Crown Heights Shomrim released an image showing the men wanted for installing the skimmer devices in a Crown Heights store. The image was shared far and wide, and it paid off Tuesday with the arrest of the two menaces.
