A gang of American credit card fraudsters who bought almost US$100,000 worth of luxury jewellery and electronics during a lavish spending spree in the Cayman Islands has been jailed.
Now detectives hope the case – and the investigation that preceded it – will serve as a warning to other visiting scammers who might be fooled into thinking the island is a soft touch.
The high-profile arrest and prosecution of a trio of American scammers is just one of half a dozen such cases in recent months.
And police say the message is clear: “The Cayman Islands is not an easy target.”
The recent prosecutions are part of a concentrated effort to thwart a variety of multi-jurisdictional credit and debit card fraud schemes which target local businesses using cards purchased off the dark web.
Dave Obaseki, a social media influencer, was charged with four counts of obtaining property by deception with a value of approximately US$50,000.
“What we are facing is a well-organised criminal network, which sees different parts of the offending occurring in different jurisdictions,” said Nevron Bradshaw of the RCIPS Financial Crime Investigation Unit.
According to Bradshaw, the offending begins with criminals stealing credit and debit information with the assistance of skimming devices, and making fake cards using the stolen information.
The cards are then sold to fraudsters who seek out jurisdictions like Cayman, with the hopes of exploiting what they believe are insufficient security measures.
“They think, ‘Oh, it’s a tiny island in the Caribbean so it’s probably a less-developed country with weaker security measures’,” Bradshaw said. “But what they eventually realise when they get here, having committed the crime and been caught, is that ‘Oh no, this place was not an easy target after all’.”
Such was the case of Dave Obaseki, Michael Capers and Sean Luke, who departed New York City in March of this year, headed for Grand Cayman with approximately 40 stolen credit and debit cards.
As soon as the men arrived on island, police say, they embarked on a spending spree, purchasing luxurious designer jewellery, colognes and expensive electronic items, such as tablets, laptops and earphones.
“The bravado and condescending behaviour of these men while they were actively pulling off the con could be seen on the CCTV footage,” said Detective Kumar White, who headed up the investigation.
“We could see the men doing high-fives and low-fives with the sales reps each time a transaction went through on one of stolen credit or debit cards,” he added.
Obaseki, 33, and Capers and Luke, both 32, had racked up a bill of more than US$92,000 less than one week after their arrival.
Almost made a clean escape
Celine Macken, the financial controller of Kirk Freeport, said their store was one of the locations targeted.
“They distracted our sales representatives with talks about them being real-estate tycoons and business owners who were here on vacation, and when one card declined, they would hand them another while still distracting them,” she said. “Unfortunately, their distractions worked, and the representatives didn’t check the names on the cards.”
The men might have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for their greed.
“At another store, the store clerk was so excited about the sale after the men left that he called his boss and said, ‘Guess what, I just sold all of the Apple products’,” White said.
White told the Compass that the store’s owner became suspicious and immediately began looking over the transactions, during which he discovered the cards were all in different names, causing him to report the matter to police.
The swift action allowed officers to track the men down to their Airbnb villa where they found them with more than 70 items, all purchased on the stolen cards.
Of the 40 stolen cards, police were able to identify scores of victims from several US states and European countries.
The men were each charged with obtaining property by deception, to which they pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 18 months in prison.
“This is not an isolated incident. We are currently investigating similar crimes with individuals from South and Central America, South Africa, and other US states, in addition to other countries,” Bradshaw said.
He noted that his team has since closed in on criminals using card-skimming machines and devices here in Cayman.
The global fight against skimming
According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigations, tens of thousands of people across the US fall victim to card fraud every year after unknowingly having their information stolen via skimming devices installed in ATMs, at fuel pumps and other point-of-sale machines.
“It is estimated that skimming costs financial institutions and consumers more than $1 billion (USD) each year,” notes the FBI on its website.
In the UK, similar statistics have been reported.
According to UK Finance, an official government website, more than £1.2 billion (CI$1.3 billion) was stolen through fraud in 2022, with that number expected to have increased in 2023.
In Cayman, police estimate as many as 36 people may have had their card information compromised after officers seized a card skimmer that was inserted into an ATM.
White told the Compass that, in that investigation, the suspects installed a camera that recorded the victims while they were entering their PIN.
“We have made an arrest in that matter and progress is under way,” said White, who added that not much more information could be provided at this time.
‘We are in this together’
“We are in business,” Macken, of Kirk Freeport, said, “and as a result, it is natural to be competitive, but not when it comes to thieves and criminals. We have to work together and we do work together.”
Several of Cayman’s retailers and business owners have formed small, informal electronic messaging groups where they pass on information about potentially suspicious people or crimes that might have recently occurred.
“This kind of teamwork should be praised,” White said. “Because of the swift thinking of the store owner and his decision to report the matter, we were able to quickly get to these men before their departure.”
According to statistics released by the Financial Crime Investigation Unit, officers dealt with 106 reported incidents of a financial nature, along with 50 active crimes in 2023. The most common types of financial crimes were obtaining property by deception and forgery of documents.
As much as CI$952,537 and US$1.1 million was recovered.
It’s not clear what percentage of that money was from debit and credit card fraud.
Unlike assault crimes, which may leave permanent scars and/or lasting physical injuries that quickly identify a victim, no such visible signs exist with these scams, often causing the matter to go out of sight and out of mind.
Nonetheless, the harm done can be just as devastating, forcing businesses to shut their doors and lay off staff. On a personal level, many victims see their savings wiped out, leaving them with crushing debt, police say.
But as long as fraudsters target Cayman, Bradshaw warns, “Those people who would seek to exploit Cayman and our businesses must know that police, prosecutors and the courts are ready and waiting to do our part to prevent it from happening, and if it does happen, we will not stop until justice is served.”
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Publish date : 2024-07-28 18:01:00
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