It began when a group of officers responded to the Dave and Buster’s at the Willowbrook Mall last week on a report of a group trying to use a bogus credit card.
A manager told the responders that the same group “was in the establishment the week before attempting to use multiple credit cards that were declined,” Detective Capt. Dan Daly said.
The group had returned and were trying to use a card with a damaged chip – a common ruse among scammers who get employees to enter the card information manually for billing, Daly said.
None of those in the group cooperated with police requests to turn over the credit card, the captain said.
However, one of them – identified as Mark Anthony Stephen, 28 – was found to have multiple warrants, he said.
Stephen was being arrested and searched when Detective Adrian Sulejmani found the credit card, along with other bogus cards, Daly said.
Stephen was charged with two counts each of theft by deception and fraudulent use of a credit card and one of credit card theft.
He was released pending court action under New Jersey’s 2017 bail reform law, the captain said.
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