Eight people have pleaded guilty to using skimmers to steal more than $736,000 from customers at Washington, D.C.’s M&S Grill, Clyde’s Restaurant and 701 Restaurant, according to federal prosecutors.

The participants in the scheme were arrested in April. Five of them were restaurant servers and surreptitiously used hand held card skimming devices to record information from the magnetic strip on customers’ credit cards. They then sold the information for $20 a card to the ringleaders in Maryland.

Those men copied it onto their own credit cards. When those cards were used, the stolen accounts were charged. Once they’d gained control of the accounts, they bought expensive purses and clothes from Gucci and Barneys, and televisions and iPods from Target.

The ringleaders are identified as Joseph A. Bush III, 28; Aaron D. Gilbert, 25; and Erick V. Burton, 38. The three men will be sentenced by summer’s end.

The servers involved in the scheme will be sentenced within the same time frame. They are Jamaal Snowden, 26; Lavell Payne, 41; Simone Carrie Diane Folk, 28; Vasha Monique Carter, 31, and Shannon Eileen McLaughlin, 23. All have pleaded guilty to conspiracy commit access device fraud.

The investigation began more than a year ago when Citibank contacted the Secret Service after receiving calls from cardholders complaining about charges they said they didn’t make.

Nearly 1.5 million Americans are enrolled in LifeLock’s identity theft services plan. Visit LifeLock.com to learn more about their comprehensive and innovative services. Enroll using the LifeLock promo code DEFENSE and pay only $9 a month and get a month of free services.

At the end of the 30-day free period, your card will be automatically billed $9 monthly unless you cancel within that first 30-day period. You can cancel anytime without penalty by calling 1-800-LIFELOCK. This offer is for new LifeLock members only.

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A gang of identity thieves has robbed more than 250 victims of more than $500,000 by inserting skimmers and mounting cameras on Staten Island ATMs.

The skimmers gathered account information from the magnetic strips on the users’ cards, and the small pinhole cameras recorded PINs as they were entered into the keyboards of the machines. The stolen information was then applied to bogus cards, which the criminals were then able to use to withdraw cash.

The perpetrators audaciously strode inside Sovereign Bank locations on Henderson Avenue and Amboy Road, where they modified the banks’ ATM machines. Bank security cameras recorded images of three men thought to have committed the heist while they were installing the skimmers and cameras, or while they were making withdrawals from their victims’ accounts.

One of those victims, Robert Schwartz, was reviewing his accounts online last month when he spotted a couple withdrawals he didn’t make—one for $600, and just minutes later, another for $400.

“They took out the maximum for the day. I was just lucky I noticed it before they hit me for another $1,000,” Schwartz said.

LifeLock provides innovative and comprehensive identity theft services to nearly 1.5 million consumers in the U.S. To learn more about how they can help you protect your identity, visit their website at LifeLock.com. Become a using the LifeLock promo code DEFENSE, and get the lowest available price of only $9 a month and 30 days of free service.

At the end of the 30-day free period, your card will be automatically billed $9 monthly unless you cancel within that first 30-day period. You can cancel anytime without penalty by calling 1-800-LIFELOCK. This offer is for new LifeLock members only.

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You’ve heard it a thousand times: Never let your credit (or debit) card out of your sight. Granted, it might be a little awkward, or even embarrassing, to follow your server from your table to the cash register when you pay your check, but in the Washington D.C. area there are .75 million new reasons to do it anyhow.

Five servers at five upscale D.C. area restaurants have been arrested and charged with using skimmers to add $750,000 in debts to customers’ credit and debit cards.

The restaurants involved are Clyde’s of Gallery Place, M&S Grill, 701 Restaurant, Carrabba’s Italian Grill and the Gaylord Hotel.

The servers accused of credit card fraud are Lavelle Denise Payne, Shannon Eileen McLaughlin, Jamaal Snowden, Vasha Monique Carter and Simone Carrie Diane Folk. The servers allegedly funneled the credit card data to Joseph Artemus Bush III, Erick V. Burton and Aaron Gilbert.

Bush allegedly converted the stolen data to clone credit cards, used them to buy American Express gift cards at Target and Walmart stores, then used the gift cards to make purchases as expensive stores like Gucci and Barney’s of New York. He was caught several times by video surveillance camera conducting transactions using the counterfeit cards.

Skimmers are easy to buy, easy to use and easy to conceal as demonstrated in this video.

In the D.C. the stolen data stayed local, but very often the large caches of data are traded, bought and sold in forums and chat rooms on the Internet. LifeLock employs several tools and strategies to safeguard your personal and financial information, including eRecon, which monitors thousands of these websites.

Visit LifeLock.com to learn more. Enroll in their identity theft service using the LifeLock promo code Defense and pay only $9 a month – the lowest price available anywhere.

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