Establish Ownership, Build a Case

 
 
 
 
 
Det. Sean Smith of the Sacramento (Calif.) Sheriff’s Department is assigned to the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force. The unit, with representatives from more than 40 law enforcement agencies, frequently investigates identity theft cases.

Smith recently spoke with STORES contributor Dave Schulz about his assignment, the use of the Siras P.I. (product information) database and the Richmond Girls case that involved more than $1 million in fraudulent purchases at retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, Nordstrom and Macy’s.

Are you seeing an increase in the use of fraudulent payment cards — as opposed to stolen cards — at retail stores?
It seems to be skyrocketing. Some of the more organized cases, they have re-coded the magnetic strip of cash cards by adding bogus numbers. They can use these with relative ease, and an important reason is that they don’t need any identification at the cash register.

When did you first become aware of the Siras P.I. database?
The Richmond Girls case was the first time we ever used it. We heard about it from the retail investigators. We contacted the company, learned how to get access and now it’s a key tool for us.

How do you use this “key tool?”
In our unit, it has become standard to use Siras any time we seize property. When we’re in the field we have mobile access laptops and can reach Siras [and] go through the serial numbers to see what we have. We can go through a vast amount of evidence. Siras allows us, as soon as we find where something belongs, to contact the retail investigators so they can start pulling register transaction and video surveillance records. This speeds things up, streamlines the whole process and makes everything more efficient. Unfortunately, the theft has to be relatively recent because many retailers don’t keep the video from their surveillance cameras for more than 30 days or so.

What kind of relationship do you have with the retailers and their investigators?
We find most are extremely cooperative. The organized theft groups understand what these cases can mean in dollar terms. Everybody is cooperative, from the big boxes to the mom-and-pop retailers.

What was the Richmond Girls case about?
Richmond is an East Bay community with a high crime rate, drug dealing, high murder rate. This group of women re-encoded gift cards with stolen credit card numbers, names [and] banking system information, which we subsequently learned they [had] bought from sources in Eastern Europe. During the investigation we found out that they had wired at least $120,000 to obtain this information.

Can you walk us through what was involved in this case?
Target had been monitoring this group and we were alerted by investigators at Target that they had seen an increase in credit card chargebacks linked to suspected fraudulent credit card transactions. Additionally, they had video images of two suspects. Shortly after they alerted us, one of their assets protection team members happened to recognize one of the suspects on video surveillance cameras attempting to buy a large number of gift cards in a Sacramento area store. The suspect was detained by store security personnel and the police were called. Upon arriving, police found the second suspect waiting in the car.

While building the case against the two female suspects, two more women were apprehended in a similar manner at another mass-market retailer in Oakland. One was in the store, the other in a car outside. Also in the car were some high-end purses — Coach, Dooney & Bourke — and some paperwork that tied them to a storage unit in the Bay Area.

So at this point they weren’t yet the “Richmond Girls” and you didn’t have much of a case?
Right. We reached out on all fronts. We were looking for hard evidence to tie them all together. We did have a sales receipt with one of the gals’ signatures for purchase of a computer. When we searched the storage unit, there were electronics, televisions, video game consoles, all sorts of high-end clothing, just bags and bags of merchandise, most of it still with the tags on.