Maryland Man Sentenced to 24 Months for Credit Card Fraud Scheme
ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Lamine Traore, 33, of Greenbelt, Md., was sentenced today to 24 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for engaging in a credit card scheme that stole account information from hundreds of individuals. Traore was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $122,122 in restitution.
Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Andrew Adelmann, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the United States Secret Service’s Washington Field Office; and Steve Simpson, Loudoun County Sheriff, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee. Traore pled guilty to access device fraud on Nov. 16, 2010.
According to court documents, from August 2009 to August 2010, Traore engaged in a fraud scheme in which he made unauthorized purchases with banking cards encoded with account numbers that he knew belonged to other individuals. The account numbers, which Traore obtained fraudulently, were encoded on to plastic cards that appeared to be authentic credit, debit and gift cards issued by financial institutions. Traore used the fraudulently obtained account numbers and cards to purchase merchandise in retail stores in Northern Virginia and elsewhere. Traore knew that he was not authorized by the true account holders to make the purchases.
During the course of the fraud scheme, Traore engaged in more than 200 separate fraudulent financial transactions, which caused losses of more than $100,000 to victim financial institutions and retail stores in the Eastern District of Virginia and elsewhere. In addition, Traore accessed without authorization the accounts of more than 250 accountholders nationwide.
This case was investigated by the United States Secret Service and the Loudoun County Sherriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney Uzo Asonye prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.
A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.uspci.uscourts.gov.
