New Jersey woman gets 5 years for leading ORC theft ring
A Millville, New Jersey, woman was sentenced Friday to five years in state prison for leading a ring that shoplifted more than $20,000 in merchandise from stores. Chiara Pender, 30, had pleaded guilty March 10 to a second-degree charge of leading of an organized retail-theft ring, state Attorney General Christopher S. Porrino announced. Last summer, after Pender’s arrest June 3, 2016, seven ring members were arrested and all pleaded guilty, Porrino wrote in a press release.
Thareick Archer, 26, of Vineland, was sentenced May 26 to 18 months in prison for receiving stolen property. Mark Rabb III, 30, of Millville, was sentenced April 7 to 30 days in Cumberland County jail for receiving stolen property. The five other defendants pleaded guilty to charges of theft or receiving stolen property and were sentenced to three-year terms of probation. Pender and her co-conspirators stole from stores including Burlington Coat Factory, Home Goods, Kohls, Lowes, Marshalls, Rite Aid, Target, TJ Maxx and Walmart, Porrino said. Pender drove the people she recruited to the stores. They shoplifted clothing, electronics and things that could be hidden easily. She returned the stolen item without a receipt to obtain gift cards using another co-conspirators to re-enter that store or after driving to another location in the store chain. Pender sold the gift cards, ranging from $100 to more than $660, at pawn shops, where she received about half the value of the cards in cash, Porrino said. [For more: Press of Atlantic City]
Pair stole $9K from jewelry store
A Poughkeepsie man and a Westchester County woman were charged with a multiple felonies Thursday after police say they stole thousands of dollars worth of items from a Wappinger jewelry store last year. State police from the Wappinger barracks charged 29-year-old Rocco R. Cardascia and 27-year-old Mamaroneck resident Casey C. Owen with third-degree burglary, third-degree grand larceny, and second-degree criminal mischief, all class D felonies. An investigation into a burglary at a Wappinger jewelry store back in October 2016 revealed that Cardascia and Owen were responsible, police said. Over $9,000 worth of jewelry was stolen during the burglary. Cardascia and Owen were arraigned at the Town of Wappinger Court. Cardascia was sent to Dutchess County Jail in lieu of $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond. Owen was sent to the Dutchess County Jail in lieu of $1,500 cash or $3,000 bond. Their next court appearance is scheduled for August 3rd. State Police were assisted by the Town of East Fishkill Police Department, the Town of Poughkeepsie Police Department, and the Village of Fishkill Police Department.” [For more: Poughkeepsie Journal]
LP associate took gun from juvenile during stop
A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Macy’s loss prevention officer was arrested Tuesday after police say he took a handgun from a juvenile he had stopped in the store. According to the Swatara Township Police Department, Brandon Jovon Osswald stopped two juveniles in the store and requested Harrisburg Mall Security’s assistance. Police said Osswald removed a handgun from one of the juveniles during the stop, but did not disclose that he had removed the firearm.
Swatara Township police said Harrisburg Mall Security told management about the firearm, after which they were contacted. According to police, the firearm was previously stolen from a neighboring jurisdiction. Osswald, who was arraigned on Wednesday, was charged with receiving stolen property, obstruction of justice, tampering with physical evidence and obstructing administration of law or governmental function. Smuggler of counterfeit electronics sentenced to 37 months in prison. [For more: Penn Live]
Smuggler of counterfeit electronics sentenced to 37 months in prison
An Italian national named Rosario La Marca has been sentenced to 37 months in prison by a Newark, New Jersey, judge for smuggling fake electronics such as iPhones, iPads, and iPods from China into the United States. The 54-year-old who resided in Naples, Italy had pleaded guilty on February 22 to charges of trafficking and smuggling fake goods into the United States as well as laundering money. The judge also sentenced him to one year of supervised release. Rosario had admitted in February this year that from July 2009 to February 2014, he and five others conspired to smuggle more than 40,000 electronic devices and accessories from China into the United States. The electronics bared Sony and Apple trademarks and were estimated to be worth $150 million.
The devices were labeled as genuine after being passed through U.S customs and were then sent to conspirators inside the US. Proceeds from sales of the devices were then sent to Rosario’s accounts in New Jersey and Florida and multiple deposits of less than $10,000 were made into the accounts to avoid bank reporting requirements. Some of the funds were also sent to conspirators in Italy. According to his court admissions, Rosario wired more than $1.1 million to Hong Kong as payment for the counterfeit products. [For more: BlastingNews]
Leader of Target REDcard fraud scheme pleads guilty to conspiracy
A man accused of operating a credit card-making “lab” out of his Sacramento garage has admitted to a fraud conspiracy involving unauthorized use of Target REDcard account numbers. Frank Her, 38, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to conspiracy to commit access-device fraud, possession of device-making equipment and possession of stolen mail, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office news release.
Her was identified in court documents as the leader of an organization of up to 50 people who created fraudulent credit cards, and stole mail and the victim’s identities. He was specifically accused of conspiring to traffic in and use unauthorized Target REDcard account numbers to purchase expensive items, including electronics, at Target locations throughout the Sacramento area.
Activities conducted at Her’s garage “lab” included operating device-making equipment to create fake credit, debit, gift and other banking cards, as well as falsifying government identification documents and washing checks, the news release said. Her created fraudulent Target REDcards in his garage and gave them to co-conspirators to use to make purchases. Her learned an algorithm that revealed how to create working Target REDcard account numbers and encoded those account numbers onto blank cards without authorization from Target or the account holders, the news release said. To avoid detection, he often sent co-conspirators to Target. If Her went himself, he wore disguises. Her was the last of seven defendants to plead guilty in the fraud scheme. He is to be sentenced Oct. 5 by U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley. [For more: The Sacramento Bee]
Community center employee accused of stealing more than $44K
A Pennsylvania woman is accused of stealing more than $44,000 from the Knoxville community center where she worked. Kristin Koscienski is accused of stealing $44,112 in cash from the Hilltop Community Children’s Center between Feb. 19, 2016 and June 26, 2017. According to a criminal complaint, the executive director at the center contacted police last week to report a theft. She told police over the past few months, she had noticed a decline in the amount of money deposited from monthly cash paymetns from families who attend the center. The complaint says she told police Koscienski was the administrative coordinator at the center and the main employee who processes payments. Koscienski was one of only three people who had access to the cash payments.The executive director told police she knew Koscienski had financial issues, and Koscienski resigned shortly after the executive director questioned her about the center’s financial concerns. Koscienski told the director she was moving to Florida for a new job. When the executive director examined the center’s records, she found Koscienski was not writing out paper receipts when parents paid, even though she marked that the parent had paid in ledgers on the center’s computers. She also found Koscienski failed to write receipts for 522 transactions between February 2016 and June 2017. Koscienski was arrested Saturday morning. [For more: CBS Pittsburgh]
LP Worldwide: Two in five retailers have experienced a data breach in the past year
Two in five retailers around the world have had a data breach in the last year – and most consider themselves to be vulnerable to such threats in the future, according to a new study. In all, 43% of retailers said they had experienced a breach over the preceding 12 months, while 60% of retailers said they have been breached in the past, and 88% say they are at risk for the future, including 37% that say they are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ vulnerable, according to the 2017 Thales Data Threat Report, Retail Edition, published this week. Information systems, cybersecurity and data security specialist Thales, which worked with analysts from 451 Research, also said that 73% of retailers planned to increase their spending on IT security in response. This, it says, will come still further to the fore as regulations increase. That includes the arrival, next year, of the European Union GDPR regulations, with measures that will give consumers more control over their data and are set to raise awareness of data privacy and sovereignty issues.
The report found that almost two thirds of retailers (64%) are now working to encrypt their data in order to comply with its requirements, 40% are tokenising data, and a similar number (36%) are implementing a migration project. According to the report, half of retail organizations (52%) will use sensitive data in a big data environment this year, with a third (34%) using encryption to protect that data. Despite this, however, 39% were very concerned that they are using these environments without proper security in place. The report also found that as adoption of cloud and SaaS environments continues to rise, so too do concerns regarding their safe use. Two-thirds of retailers (67%), for example, claimed to be very or extremely concerned about cloud service providers (CSPs) falling victim to security breaches or attacks. A similar number (66%) expressed concerns around vulnerabilities in shared infrastructure, and 65% were worried about the custodianship of the encryption keys used to protect their data. [For more: Internet Retailing]
The post Breaking News in the Industry: July 24, 2017 appeared first on LPM.