Cops Lay More Than A Hundred Charges In High End Credit Card Fraud Ring
Posted February 24, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
They’re accused of living high on the hog using someone else’s money. And some of it could have been yours.
Toronto Police have laid 140 charges against four residents in an elaborate credit card fraud that targeted a high end business in one of the richest areas of the city.
Cops started their joint investigation called Project Tuna in 2008, after discovering a ring was using an altered PIN pad and chip to clone information from unsuspecting credit card users and then go on shopping sprees to fund their lavish lifestyles.
Authorities refused to reveal the name of the spa where 216 clients were taken in, beyond noting it’s in the ritzy Yorkville area. They allege personnel at the establishment were distracted by the accused and had no idea their machines had been compromised.
Investigators say the crooks were clever, holding onto the information for months at a time before using the cloned credit cards to buy whatever they wanted. Other merchadise was sold at grey markets or on the Internet for a further profit.
And police say they have video evidence that shows the culprits actually coming back to the scene of the crime and replacing the altered keypads to hide their tracks.
There were 1,241 fraudulent transactions in all.
“The calculated loss at this point, and it’s still rising, is $485,000,” revealed Det. Sgt. Niels Sondergaard.
The crime was only detected when one of the ripped off credit card companies discovered what was going on and called authorities.
And in an odd twist, cops allege the spree was using one spa to finance another.
They claim the suspects used some of their ill gotten gains to buy the equipment needed to set up a similar business called the “Jung Spa” at 257 Danforth Ave., which had just celebrated its grand opening on February 8th.
When police finally moved in on the quartet, they were stunned by what they found. They were living in luxury, and there was so much illegally purchased material, they needed a large truck to haul it all into evidence.
“Their lifestyle included luxurious spending sprees,” relates P.C. Todd Hall. “Whether it be high end food stores, shopping at your exclusive businesses on Bloor Street. Whether it’s Holt Renfrew, Prada, stuff like that. They spent a lot of money on personal items.”
That includes $100,000 on clothing alone. There were pricey shoes, expensive computers, and more electronic gear.
No expense was spared at the business they started, either. “They furnished everything from the electrical in the spa to the dry wall to the floors to the tiling. Almost everything in the spa we can almost relate back to fraudulent credit card,” Hall explains.
Cops believe the crew had been at it for a while. And they say the accused were experts at spreading the charges around, hoping those taken wouldn’t examine their credit card statements too closely.
“They would have no way of knowing that their data was being compromised,” points out Sondergaard. “So as anyone would be sliding a credit card along here, that magnetic information on the credit card was being recorded by the suspects. And a little chip that was embedded in this device. That information continued along for several months.”
Forty-four-year-old Goran Sadic and his 41-year-old wife Milena, 38-year-old Filip Djukic and 25 year-old Julia Sung are facing a long list of charges. Cops warn they could soon be adding even more as they continue to process the evidence.
