Men buy tens of thousands of dollars in gas with stolen credit card numbers, feds say

Two men are accused of buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of gas using stolen credit card information, federal officials said.

Kingsley Brown, 22, is the second person accused of the scheme to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York said in an Aug. 14 news release.

Brown admitted to causing $190,000 in losses, and his co-defendant, Cross Malik Williams, said he caused over $250,000 in losses when he pleaded guilty in March, officials said.

McClatchy News reached out to both mens’ attorneys Aug. 15 and did not immediately receive a response.

From about August 2022 to July 2023, the men bought about 570 stolen credit card numbers on online marketplaces and used a device to put the stolen numbers onto blank plastic cards that had magnetic strips, federal officials said.

They’re accused of running their scheme out of gas stations around Buffalo, New York.

Drivers would pull up to the gas station, then one of the accused conspirators would use a card to pay for the gas and the drivers would pay them back for less than the gas cost, prosecutors said.

Sometimes, the men are accused of getting in people’s cars nearby and riding with them to the gas station, paying for the gas and leaving with the customers. The drivers would then pay with cash or send money through Cash App, officials said.

The FBI said it reviewed over 100 hours of surveillance footage and saw either Brown or Williams do this at least 453 times.

Some of the people whose information was stolen reported it to their banks, but others either didn’t realize or report it, officials said.

The gas station business noticed a “significant number” of chargebacks, or money returning to customers, according to investigators.

The business recorded $169,948 in chargebacks over the course of a year from eight locations, investigators said. However, the FBI hasn’t been able to determine whether all the chargebacks resulted from the gas scheme.

Brown is expected to be sentenced Dec. 11.

This story was originally published August 16, 2024 at 4:53 AM with the headline "Men buy tens of thousands of dollars in gas with stolen credit card numbers, feds say."