Credit where credit is due.
Police have arrested two Brooklyn men who were allegedly ripping off credit-card and cash-machine users in Bath Beach as part of a scheme that extended all the way to China.
Officers pinched Elvin Pineda of Gravesend and a Sunset Park man on Oct. 15 as they were allegedly drilling into a cash machine inside the TD Bank in the Caesar’s Bay Shopping Center at 1:30 am, police said. Cops also found 72 Xanax pills on the pair, a criminal complaint states.
After arresting the men, detectives grilled them at the 62nd Precinct station house, and police say the suspects admitted they were taking parts from the machines to ship to China to help manufacture skimming devices, a report says. When affixed to cash machines and other card readers, skimming devices capture bank-card information of unwitting users, which identity thieves then use to duplicate the cards and make unauthorized transactions.
Police say Pineda told them he had equipment for producing fake credit cards at his Bay 47th Street apartment. The department secured a warrant, and when searching the residence fonud sophisticated printers and embossing machines to turn sheets of plastic into legit-looking credit cards, the complaint states.
The two suspects were arraigned on Oct. 16, court records show.
Prosecutors are charging the pair with criminal mischief, criminal tampering, and possession of a forged device. Pineda is facing hundreds of additional counts of possession of a forged device for the phony credit cards allegedly found in his apartment, the complaint states.
Pineda’s attorney declined to comment and the Sunset Park man’s attorney could not be reached.
