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Three Long Island men were arrested of using fake IDs to get rental cars and then selling them for a fraction of their value.
Step 1: Create counterfeit credit cards and phony driver’s licenses.
Step 2: Use those to rent late-model cars from clueless counter people at local airports.
Step 3: Sell the hot cars for pennies.
Step 4: Pocket the dough.
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That, in a nutshell, was what three Long Island men are accused of doing, including one who allegedly manufactured the phony IDs in his parents’ bedroom, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office said Wednesday.
The trio stole some fine rides, among them a Mercedes-Benz and a Cadillac, from car rental vendors at Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark airports, officials said.
But they were way better at filching than fencing.
They unloaded the stolen cars “for pennies on the dollar,” said Suffolk DA Thomas Spota.
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One of the men make fake IDs at his parents’ home and even had a machine that would numbers on the plactic stick up, like on a credit card.
For example, they sold a 2013 Caddy stolen from LaGuardia for just $ 2,100, he said.
By comparison, a brand new 2013 Cadillac ATS lists, on average, for about $ 41,000 at most local dealerships.
Jason Gonzalez, 23, of Lindenhurst, was charged last week with possessing and using equipment used to manufacture the phony credit cards and driver’s licenses.
Also arrested and charged with a range of crimes were Jose Lopez, 29, of Bayshore, and Felix Sanchez, 29, of Brentwood.
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So far, Spota said, they’ve been able to account for at least 10 of the stolen cars and said Avis and Hertz were among the rental companies that were targeted.
Investigators suspect more cars were stolen and shipped overseas before cops got wind of what the trio was doing earlier this year, Spota said.
Spota said Gonzalez “provided his accomplices with authentic-looking drivers’ licenses, ID cards and credit cards” with equipment he bought on eBay.
Cops confiscated embossing machines, thermal printers, blank cards and what’s called a “Tipper Machine,” which is used to imprint raised numbers on fake credit cards with silver or gold foil.
Spota said Gonzalez used information he “skimmed” from several hundred victims at a “retail business” in Suffolk County to create the phony IDs. He did not name the business.
In the course of the investigation, cops also arrested a fourth man, Kenneth Godfrey, 47, of Holbrook, L.I., and charged him with selling pot, Spota said.
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via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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