Two Syracuse Men Plead Guilty to Roles in Credit-Card Cloning Conspiracy

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK – Daquan Rice, 22, and Damian Diaz, 26, both of Syracuse, New York, pled guilty to conspiracy charges relating to their role in a years-long credit-card cloning operation, announced United States Attorney Richard S. Hartunian.

Daquan Rice pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire-fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money-laundering, and two counts of aggravated identity theft. Damian Diaz pled guilty to one count of wire-fraud conspiracy and one count of money-laundering conspiracy. As part of their guilty pleas, both men admitted to their involvement in the scheme, which involved the purchase of stolen credit card numbers belonging to numerous victims and the fabrication of cloned credit cards. They further admitted that they used those cloned credit cards to purchase tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise and prepaid gift cards. The defendants used the prepaid gift cards to purchase United States Postal money orders, which they converted to cash. Rice’s and Diaz’s criminal conspiracy ran from 2014 through 2016 in Syracuse, New York, as well as in Texas and Georgia.

Rice and Diaz are scheduled to be sentenced on September 29, 2017. The wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges carry a maximum possible sentence of twenty years incarceration. The aggravated identity theft charges to which defendant Daquan Rice pled guilty carry a two year mandatory minimum sentence, which must run consecutive to the sentence imposed on the other charges.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the United States Postal Inspectors, the Syracuse Police Department – Gang Violence Task Force, the New York State Police, and the Town of Dewitt Police Department, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Commandeur.