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Working together, the defendants defrauded several major banks and electronic merchant processors by creating shell companies that issued checks to one another, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.
They also conducted “fraudulent credit card and debit card transactions between shell companies to fraudulently credit payee accounts and fraudulently overdraw payor accounts,” Carpenito said.
The shell companies also issued temporary refund credits – charge-backs – for bogus transactions to the checking accounts that members of the crew established, he said.
Ring members withdrew the funds through ATMs or from bank tellers, the U.S. attorney said.
By the time the banks and merchant processors realized what happened, the money was already gone, he said.
Federal authorities identified 200 bank accounts and 75 merchant credit card processing accounts created as part of the scheme.
In custody were:
- Ali Abbas, 38, of Carteret;
- Habib Majid, 34, of North Brunswick;
- Naveed Arif, 42, of Port Reading;
- Erm Ayaz, 36, of Bayside, Queens;
- Awaise Dar, 32, of Dearborn, Michigan.
They were searching for Shamsher Farooq, 26, of Dearborn, Michigan, and Rana Sharif, 36, of Dearborn Heights, Michigan.
Carpenito credited postal inspectors of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Newark and Michigan divisions, special agents of the Newark offices of the Department of Homeland Security Investigations and the Social Security Administration with the investigation.
He also thanked the Department of Homeland Security Investigations Michigan Division and the U.S. Attorneys for the Eastern District of Virginia and the District of Maryland.
Handling the case for the government is Assistant U.S. Attorney Ray Mateo of Carpenito’s Criminal Division in Trenton.
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