Brooklyn Man Sentenced To 5 Years Imprisonment And Ordered To Pay $297,554.00 In Restitution For Credit Card Fraud

RICHARD S. HARTUNIAN, United States Attorney, Northern District of New York announces that PAUL HILL (24, of Brooklyn, New York) was sentenced to 60 months imprisonment by United States District Court Judge Norman A. Mordue for Access Device Fraud and Aggravated Identity Theft. Judge Mordue also ordered HILL to pay restitution in the amount of $297,554.00 to seven banks that had been defrauded by the credit card scam.

Pursuant to his plea agreement with the government, HILL admitted that he fraudulently obtained, without permission via the internet, credit and debit card account numbers (account numbers) that belonged to other persons. Those account numbers were issued by financial institutions that engaged in interstate and foreign commerce. After obtaining the account numbers, PAUL HILL stored the information on his computer at his residence in Brooklyn, New York. Thereafter, PAUL HILL converted plastic cards, usually gift cards, into counterfeit credit or debit cards by re-encoding the cards with the fraudulently obtained account numbers and other information that belonged to other persons. Thereafter, PAUL HILL mailed the manufactured counterfeit cards to co-defendant Andre Greaves in Syracuse, New York.

After receiving the counterfeit cards, Andre Greaves utilized the manufactured counterfeit cards to effect transactions at numerous merchant locations in Onondaga County and elsewhere. Specifically, Greaves utilized the manufactured counterfeit cards to purchase stored value gift cards (gift cards). After purchasing the gift cards, Greaves redeemed a portion of the gift cards for his own personal use, and on the instruction of PAUL HILL, mailed a portion of the gift cards to HILL in Brooklyn, New York.

At the time PAUL HILL manufactured and mailed the counterfeit credit cards to Andre Greaves, he knew that the account numbers belonged to real people who had not authorized either Greaves or HILL to make the purchases. HILL, aided and abetted by Greaves, knowingly, willfully, and with the intent to defraud, used the manufactured counterfeit cards during a one year period to obtain items of value amounting to more than $1,000.00. Specifically, between June 2010 and April 2011, Andre Greaves made purchases totaling approximately $16,314.36 using unauthorized access devices that he obtained from HILL.

On March 27, 2012, Andre Greaves pled guilty to Access Device Fraud and Aggravated Identity Theft. On August 1, 2012, Judge Mordue sentenced Greaves to 36 months imprisonment and also ordered him to pay the same amount of restitution as HILL.

These arrests followed from a lengthy investigation conducted by the United States Secret Service, Syracuse Resident Office, the United States Secret Service, New York Field Office, the United States Postal Inspectors, and the Syracuse Police Department. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ransom P. Reynolds. Further questions may be directed to Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan at (315) 448-0672.