Editor’s Note: See also Cigarette Smuggling and Cyber Security: Low-Tech Crimes Fund High-Tech Threats. Cross-posted from the Regulatory Cybersecurity forum.
From: Triad Business Journal
By Lauren K. Ohnesorge Senior Staff Writer, Triangle Business Journal
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According to the feds, the group started with stolen credit card information acquired online from “overseas hackers.”
The data would then be encoded onto magnetic strips of plastic credit cards, altered from their original form, according to the indictment. One of the suspects would visit a Walmart “in the Eastern District of North Carolina and elsewhere,” and use the counterfeit cards to buy gift cards. Suspects would then take those real cards to a Sam’s Club store and purchase cartons of cigarettes, which they would then allegedly sell to a vendor in exchange for payment.
