111 indicted in huge identity-theft ring

Bands of identity thieves took $13 million from consumers, banks and businesses through a worldwide credit card fraud operation that involved shopping sprees at local malls, officials said Friday.

A total of 111 men and women, mostly from New York City but including five from Long Island, were indicted on charges they were part of five different crews that used stolen credit card numbers to go on buying binges for expensive jewelry, handbags and high-end electronics, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.

The number of suspects indicted made the case, dubbed "Operation Swiper," the largest identity theft takedown in history, Brown and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said at a news conference.

"This is by far the largest and certainly among the most sophisticated identity theft-credit card fraud cases that law enforcement has come across," Brown said.

While touring the country and shopping, some of the defendants used the stolen credit card numbers to stay at five-star hotels like the Fontainebleau and The Royal Palm in Miami, rent luxury automobiles and private jets, Brown added.

The investigation started in 2009, Brown said, and indictments covered activities that occurred last year and this year. Financial institutions, retail businesses and consumers lost more than $13 million during that time, Brown said.

"The schemes and imagination that are developing are really mind-boggling," Kelly said about identity theft.

Some 86 suspects had been arrested as of midday Friday with another 25 being sought, investigators said.

The five crews were divided up among bosses and underbosses, as well as subunits comprised of shoppers and fences. Defendants were charged with an assortment of enterprise corruption, identity theft, larceny and conspiracy counts.

Among those charged with being a ringleader of one of the crews was Sanjay "Rocky" Deowsarran, 37, of Valley Stream. Investigators said that Irina Pervukhina, 22, living at the same 36 W. St. Marks Place address in Valley Stream as Deowsarran, allegedly served as his underboss. Accused of being someone who sold merchandise for Deowsarran was Allen Lam, 36, of Williston Park.

An attorney, Susan Persaud, 36, of 105 Jeffrey Lane, Oceanside, was accused of helping one of the crime crews evade law enforcement and to commit new crimes, allegedly receiving designer shoes as payment, investigators said.

Deowsarran lived at the home of his sister and brother-in-law. Gerald Bacchus, 32, said he rarely saw his brother-in-law since Deowsarran moved into the house three months ago from Queens.

Bacchus said he was asleep when police came to arrest Deowsarran on Friday morning.

"I was sleeping and then at 5 o'clock in the morning the police came to get him," Bacchus said. "Whatever he was doing, he wasn't doing anything here."

The various crews got legitimate credit card numbers and then used them to make forged credit and identification cards, according to investigators.

The numbers were obtained from "skimmers," people who worked at banks, restaurants and retail stores who used a skimming device to steal a consumer's credit card information, police said.

Other numbers were obtained from overseas sources in Russia, Libya, Lebanon and China, as well as off the Internet, according to investigators.

Once fake credit cards were manufactured with the legitimate numbers, "shopping crews" fanned out and started making purchases. Among the shopping areas hit for purchases were the Roosevelt Field and Walt Whitman malls, and the Americana in Manhasset, Brown said.

Deowsarran was arraigned Friday on two indictments with bail set at $1.1 million, said a spokesman for Brown. His attorney, Joseph Schioppi, couldn't be reached for comment. Bail was set at $125,000 cash for Pervukhina and $250,000 cash for Lam. Persaud was released on her own recognizance.

Anatomy of a fraud

1. Suspects obtain credit card account numbers from overseas sources, the Internet and "skimmers" who worked in banks, retail stores and restaurants, using electronic devices to steal cardholder information.

SOURCE: NYPD and Queens district attorney's Office

With Tania Lopez