The gift that kept on giving is giving no more. A Queens grand jury indicted 13 people accused of running a sprawling gift-card scam that raked in approximately $24 million over a two-year period.
The 192-count indictment, announced Wednesday by the Queens DA’s Office, charges that brothers Christopher and Bryan Nathoo oversaw a sophisticated crime ring that stole credit card information, used it to buy gift cards and then exchanged the cards for cash.
“The defendants are charged with a multi-million-dollar gift-card fraud scheme that victimized banks and retail stores and hurt the credit ratings of countless law-abiding citizens,” said New York State Financial Services Superintendent Linda Lacewell.
The investigation began with an NYPD Grand Larceny Division probe of a fence based out of a 150th St. address in Jamaica in 2015. The fence, allegedly controlled by the Nathoo brothers, employed a variety of confederates, including “fence manager, swipers, shoppers, fence employees, money launderer and more,” according to the DA’s Office… NY Daily News