Two Men Sentenced for Separate Credit and Debit Card Fraud Schemes

BOISE – Juwuan Demilo Gordon, 27, of Westland, Michigan, and Yulian Cruz Santa Cruz, 23, of Las Vegas, Nevada, were sentenced on July 27 and July 28, respectively, by Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in the United States District Court in Boise on charges arising from credit and debit card fraud, Acting U.S. Attorney Rafael Gonzalez announced.

Gordon was sentenced to 27 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Judge Winmill also ordered Gordon to pay $7,299.33 in restitution. Gordon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud on April 24, 2017.

According to the plea agreement, Gordon and co-defendant Devin Searcy agreed to travel to Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Oklahoma to make fraudulent purchases of gift cards and prepaid debit cards from retail stores. Gordon and Searcy used stolen credit card numbers embossed onto counterfeit credit and debit cards that they obtained in Michigan. Law enforcement recovered at least twelve counterfeit credit cards and 105 gift cards and prepaid debit cards from Gordon and Searcy. Searcy also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He will be sentenced in August.

Santa Cruz was sentenced to four months in prison, in addition to two months already served, followed by three years of supervised release for wire fraud. Judge Winmill also ordered Santa Cruz to pay $15,277.89 in restitution. Santa Cruz pleaded guilty to the charge on April 27, 2017.

According to the plea agreement, co-defendants Santa Cruz and Yaniel Villafana Febles traveled from Nevada to Idaho and used stolen debit card numbers to buy merchandise and gift cards from Walmart stores in the Treasure Valley. When Santa Cruz and Febles were apprehended, they had in their possession 74 pre-paid debit cards that had been re-encoded with stolen account numbers. Santa-Cruz admitted to perpetrating this fraud scheme in Idaho on at least one prior occasion. Febles pled guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced in June to six months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Both cases were investigated by the Boise Police Department and the United States Secret Service.