DA: Credit card ring targeted city's rich

A sophisticated credit card theft ring recruited waiters at pricey New York City steakhouses to steal account data from wealthy diners' cards and then used it to charge millions in jewelry, designer handbags, art and wine at high-end stores, prosecutors charged Friday.

The gang targeted restaurants including Smith & Wollensky, The Capital Grille, Wolfgang's Steakhouse and JoJo in Manhattan, and focused on cards with high credit limits -- American Express black and gold -- to maximize the profit from each theft, said Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.

Officials stood in front of a table festooned with $300,000 of more than $1.2 million in cash that was seized, as well as samples of the $1 million in Rolex and other watches, Hermes handbags, cases of fine wine and art -- including a Roy Lichtenstein lithograph of Marilyn Monroe -- the thieves bought.

"The high-end targets of this case make it notable, but disturbingly this case is far from unique," said Vance, whose office indicted 28 in a joint investigation with the NYPD and the Secret Service. "Every day hardworking New Yorkers find themselves the victims of identity theft."

The alleged mastermind of the scheme was Luis Jacas, 40, of New York City, who was charged with training a crew of waiters to steal the data from selected customers using devices called "skimmers" that they could hold in the palm of their hands, and then using the data to manufacture replica credit cards and fake drivers licenses to match.

Others served as "managers" who oversaw the purchasing operation -- sometimes filling orders placed by customers of the ring -- and "shoppers" who were trained on what to buy and how to dress and act in swanky stores like Chanel, Neiman Marcus and Cartier in locations ranging from Manhattan and Long Island to Boston and Florida.

The goods were then sold at a profit, generally 50 percent of retail, sometimes through fences, sometimes on eBay. During phone surveillance, officials said, defendants discussed clearing $1 million between October and Christmas of this year.

At least 50 American Express cardholders' data was used on counterfeit cards from April 2010 to this month, officials said, but the cardholders didn't have to pay for the fraudulent charges. American Express initiated the investigation.

Most of the defendants -- who included seven waiters, six managers and 10 shoppers -- were arraigned in Manhattan Supreme Court late Friday, and pleaded not guilty to felony charges including conspiracy, grand larceny and enterprise corruption.

The only defendant from Long Island was Kenneth Franquiz, 31, of Bellmore, accused of skimming credit card data as a manager at a Morton's steakhouse in Stamford, Conn. He pleaded not guilty.