Deciphered Gift Card Identifying Numbers to Steal Balances
Five members of a fraud ring charged with compromising the internal gift card system of major national retailer, Target Corporation, and defrauding the retailer and its legitimate customers of almost $800,000 have been indicted on wire fraud charges by a federal grand jury in Seattle, announced U.S. Attorney Annette L. Hayes. Jwffery Mann, 29, of Marysville, Washington, and Joshua Newman, 33, of Kirkland, Washington will appear in U.S. District Court in Seattle at 2:00 today.
A third defendant, Corey Mosey, 30, of Lynnwood, Washington is in Washington state custody on unrelated charges. The two remaining defendants Kennady Weston, 22, and Derrick Quintana, 26, both of Everett, Washington, are being sought by law enforcement.
According to the indictment unsealed today, between May 2017 and December 2017, the ring allegedly stole gift card balances worth more than $785,000, and often sold illegally purchased goods or store gift cards for bitcoin on an internet marketplace. The co-conspirators allegedly used a special algorithm to reverse-engineer and identify unique
bar code numbers of thousands of authentic gift cards sold by Target to legitimate customers.
Members of the scheme then used the retailer’s automated customer service telephone system to verify balances linked to the various stolen gift card numbers. They then loaded active gift card numbers onto a mobile or electronic wallet app on their phones, which the co-conspirators used to purchase merchandise and legitimate gift cards at various Target store locations across at least five states: Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Colorado. For example, on one occasion in November 2017, Mann, Weston, Quintana, and others used roughly 180 compromised gift card numbers to make $6,900 in purchases at the Southcenter Mall Target store in Tukwila, Washington.
When the actual cardholders later tried to use their gift cards, they discovered that they had zero balance. In December 2017, Target modified its gift card system in response
to the fraud, putting an end to the scheme.
Wire fraud is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
