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Four suspects in massive credit card fraud case indicted by federal grand jury

The defendants were indicted last Friday
Four suspects in massive credit card fraud case indicted by federal grand jury
Posted at 3:06 PM, May 22, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-22 15:08:43-04

CINCINNATI – Four suspects in a massive card credit card fraud investigation were indicted by a federal grand jury  Friday.

Alex Souffrant, 26, of Atlanta, Ervins Joseph, 29, of Atlanta and Nelson Edmee, 29, of New York have all been indicted on one count of conspiracy to produce, use, or traffic in unauthorized access devices, one count of producing, using, or trafficking in an unauthorized access device, one count of possession of more than 15 unauthorized access devices and one count of possession of device-making equipment.

Cynthia Laine, 28, of Brooklyn, has only been indicted on one count of conspiracy to produce, use, or traffic in unauthorized access devices.

In August 2016, police arrested Laine at the Colerain Township Kroger after she attempted to buy gift cards using a fake credit card that contained information stolen from a real credit card, according to court records.  

Further investigation led police to a room at the Super 8 Motel in Springdale where they saw two men pack up their car and leave, court documents say. The men were eventually pulled over when the driver failed to use a turn signal.

Police searched the vehicle and found that the defendants had numerous gift cards, computers and other equipment used for making phony credit cards, police said at the time.

According to new federal court records, Edmee, Joseph and Souffrant all possessed wire transfer receipts, a credit card encoder, card embossers, false government IDs, cash, and approximately 150 physical credit and gift cards, including 126 Visa cards.

The trio also possessed a computer that had been used to download approximately 2,491 unique credit card account numbers from various online carding forums, federal court records say. The computer also contained software used as a program for encoding credit cards, according to court documents.

A date has not been set for a preliminary hearing.