Sonoma ‘Skimmer’ credit-card fraud victims mount

Five devices found at Springs gas stations; thousands in phony charges reported already.|

When most drivers fill up at a gas station, their biggest concern at the pump is the price per gallon.

At least that’s how it was until last week, when two Sonoma Valley filling stations were sabotaged by what the Sonoma Sheriff’s Office believes may be a professional criminal gang.

Valero Gas, 18605 Sonoma Highway, and Sonoma Beacon, 18618 Sonoma Highway, are half a block apart, at the intersection of Siesta Way and Sonoma Highway in the Springs. Both gas stations are owned by Saied Molavi, 65, of Sonoma.

The manager of Valero Gas notified police Oct. 11 that she had located a possible credit card “skimmer” - a small device illegally installed in the credit card terminal of a gas pump, which can read and save credit card information. The responding Sherriff’s deputies recovered five devices from multiple gas pumps at both Valero and Sonoma Beacon, though two of the devices had apparently been removed by the suspects previously.

A Boyes Hot Springs woman, whose credit card was compromised following a gas purchase at Sonoma Beacon on Oct. 11, told the Index-Tribune that the deputy who took her report theorized that, given the scope and sophistication of the scheme, the perpetrators were unlikely to be local. The woman discovered five fraudulent charges to her card totaling $1,016 made at Raley’s outlets in the Placer County cities of Loomis and Lincoln on Oct. 14, all within a span of four minutes.

Karen Sue Hunt, manager of the Raley’s in Loomis, said that video of the person or persons using the cards would likely exist if police could determine the exact day and time the fraudulent charges were made. “If a card is used five times in four minutes, obviously, that means there are multiple copies of the card made and given to multiple people. This kind of crime happens sometimes, but not a lot,” Hunt said, adding that she has been victimized by a skimmer scam herself. “I’d like to hang ‘em all. I felt violated.”

But Sgt. Spencer Crum, public information officer for the Sonoma County Sherriff’s Office, said that a flurry of fraudulent activity in a short span of time doesn’t necessarily suggest a group of thieves working in concert. “Stores like Raley’s are popular because they have self-check-outs and thieves can purchase store gift cards using the fraudulent card multiple times at a self-check-out without an employee getting suspicious. They will purchase five separate transactions for $200 gift cards instead of doing a $1,000 transaction. A bank typically won’t get suspicious over a $200 transaction at a grocery store,” Crum said.

Indeed, it wasn’t until the fifth transaction cleared West America Bank, where the Boyes Hot Springs victim keeps her accounts, that the bank took notice and froze the card.

Credit card skimming is a booming criminal enterprise, described as a “multi-billion dollar business” by police. Skimmers can be purchased online for just a few dollars, along with a universal key that allows access to most gas pumps. Some skimmers are external, designed to slide over existing hardware. But many gas station skimmers are installed inside, making them totally invisible to consumers. “You would just never know, there’s no way of knowing that a skimmer is there,” said Dan Felippi, a reformed credit card skimmer who now consults with law enforcement, in an interview on ABC’s “The Lookout.”

First generation skimmers require physical retrieval, doubling the possibility of capture for perpetrators. But a new generation of skimmers allow criminals to use blue tooth technology to gather data remotely, and the latest iteration of the technology sends stolen data to criminals’ cell phones in real time.

At Valero and Sonoma Beacon, the skimming devices recovered were internal. “Suspect had drilled out the barrel-type lock to force open the machine, fastened skimmer on the inside and then re-secured the gas pump with a screw. Employee changing the receipt ribbon noticed the screw instead of the lock and called us,” Crum said.

Crum said police know of at least a dozen cases of credit theft stemming from the Springs stations so far, but that the total could be more.

He gave the hypothetical example, that if an out-of-town visitor from Mesa, Arizona filled up a rental car in Boyes and flew home, if they were notified by their bank of suspicious activity at a Raleys in perhaps, Loomis, California, they would work with their bank and file a credit card fraud report in Mesa with the Mesa police.

“That would be difficult to track back to a gas station in Boyes,” he said.

In regard to the Springs gas station credit scam, according to Crum, fraudulent transactions have been confirmed at Raley’s outlets in Loomis, Lincoln, Rocklin and Roseville, as well as at a CVS in San Jose, and a Food Maxx, CVS, and Shell station in Tracy.

At least four people reported filing police reports to the I-T, and many others used social medial platforms to report being victimized by the skimmer scammers.

Kristine Gorman lost a little over $1,000 to the card skimmers, after purchasing gas at Sonoma Beacon on Oct 4. “I talked to three people when I was redoing my card that were also scammed,” Gorman said.

Kimberly Willson reported that her bank card was compromised after purchasing gas at Sonoma Beacon on Oct. 6 or 7. Thieves used it six times at Raley’s in Fairfield and Antioch to make more than $1,000 in purchases.

“It seems really strange that all of the fraudulent charges were at Raley’s stores,” Willson said. “And with all of today’s surveillance equipment, you’d think these thieves would be caught.”

According to Crum, detectives have surveillance video but need time to review it. They have not yet determined when the skimmers were placed at the gas pumps, but they were discovered on Thursday, Oct. 11, meaning that if Gorman was an early victim on Oct. 4, the devices were in place for at least eight days.

A female clerk who answered the phone at Sonoma Beacon said the station is “busy all the time” when asked how many vehicles fill up there on a typical day. And the officer who took the report filed by the woman in Boyes Hot Springs told her that she was his third case of the morning, and that all of his colleagues were likewise engaged. “I think this case is going to result in tens and tens and tens of thousands of dollars lost,” he told her.

Contact Kate at kate.williams@sonomanews.com.

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