“Credit card factory” busted in Burnaby: RCMP

BURNABY (NEWS1130) – You could be one of thousands of victims in what Mounties call a massive fraud and theft bust.

Eighteen charges each have been laid against a young couple operating a so-called ‘credit card factory’ in a Metrotown condo. Police also link Anthony Stulec, 29, and Stephanie Smyth, 21, to at least 80 break and enters or thefts from auto.

In the raid, police found 80,000 credit card numbers stored in hard drives, stacks of drivers licenses, passports, and other pieces of ID. Card printers were seized, along with Canada Post uniforms used to steal several boxes of mail.  Also seized were a Taser, three air rifles, two pellet handguns and a small amount of drugs.

“This is very big, very significant,” says RCMP Inspector Tim Shields. “I have personally never seen a file of this magnitude.”

The common law couple was arrested after taking one of their printers to a repair shop on March 7th, which found a credit card with someone else’s name jammed inside. Officers kept an eye on the pair and arrested them outside their condo while a search warrant was executed.

Shields cannot say for sure the number of victims, but information found in three of fifteen hard drives seized has revealed some disturbing evidence. “We found spreadsheets containing over 44,000 individual identities of people. Full names, SIN numbers, addresses, drivers license information, and banking information.”

Shields says fraudulent accounts were set up at almost every financial institution in the region and the stolen information was used to set up transfers from legitimate account holders. He adds the investigation will take many more months to conclude as it reaches into virtually every community in the Lower Mainland.

Stulec had apparently been operating under as many as 24 aliases.

Thousands of hotel receipts were also found in this fraud ring. The Better Business Bureau says this should be a wake-up call for those taking guest personal information.

RCMP say info came from a Sandman Hotel in Surrey and a Ramada Inn somewhere else in the Lower Mainland.

Shields says at least one of those places was keeping receipts in a box kept in a storage room.

“We don’t have any information to believe that any hotel employee is involved, but we know theses exhibits you see here are part of a larger ring of people who are involved in these thefts, the break and enters,” he adds.

Mark Fernandes with the BBB says at the very least hotels should shred this information after you check-out.

“They should be looking at their whole waste-paper refuse system because they have a lot of sensitive information that they are keeping in documents like this. Even trash dumpster’s, is there any sensitive information that is going in there?”

He says you should question why they need your drivers license, passport or visa information, how they plan to use it and where it will go after check out.

Unfortunately, he says, information like this is often needed to properly ID you and make sure your bill is covered. “I think it is a challenging thing for a consumer to say that they don’t want to provide that sensitive information.”

Meanwhile, police are warning you to never leave your purse or wallet in your car. They say you should shred any information that may be considered personal or sensitive, and never give out information on the phone unless you are absolutely certain you know who’s on the line.