The final two defendants accused of running a so-called "hit-and-run" counterfeit credit card scam over a five-day period on Oahu last April are in custody.
Deputy U.S. marshals in New York captured Sean Khani and Tamel Vaughn, both 24, early Friday in Brooklyn. The U.S. marshal case agent is Davan Gabbard, the younger sister of U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii.
Marshal deputies in New York arrested Falyshia Pierre-Lys, 19, last month. She was extradited to Honolulu this week and is scheduled to be arraigned in state court Thursday.
Authorities in Aruba arrested Isatta Bassie, 19, and Shawnese Adams, 24, in December on unrelated charges. At the conclusion of their criminal cases in Aruba, they will be returned to the United States and extradited to Hawaii.
An Oahu grand jury returned an indictment against the five Brooklyn residents in November charging them with theft, identity theft and unauthorized possession of confidential personal information. A state judge ordered the indictment sealed until the city prosecutor asked to have it unsealed Wednesday.
The city prosecutor says the defendants came here in April, checked in to the Trump International Hotel in Waikiki and over the next five days conducted fraudulent transactions at high-end retail stores before returning to New York.
The stores include Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Fendi, Gucci, Ben Bridge, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Kaimana Kea Rolex.
"These five visitors were not tourists. They came to Hawaii to commit crimes," Honolulu Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro said Friday.
Timothy Hollern, U.S. Secret Service assistant special agent-in-charge in Honolulu, said counterfeit credit card scammers typically take credit card information that was stolen by skimming, or using illegal devices to retrieve information from real cards and then encoding the information onto new phony cards.
Kaneshiro said a new state law approved last year that enables state judges to issue subpoenas, warrants or orders for records maintained outside Hawaii was instrumental in the investigation.
Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter said some of the records that authorities recovered in this case include emails containing a list of stolen credit card numbers and instructions for creating counterfeit cards, pictures of three of the defendants riding Jet Skis off Hawaii Kai that were rented using counterfeit credit cards, and airline booking information of one of the defendants under a false name.
He said authorities were also able to recover pictures from a Twitter account of one of the defendants at the Trump Hotel wearing and displaying merchandise that was purchased from a Chanel store using a counterfeit credit card.
Van Marter said the defendants victimized three major credit card companies, 14 companies and 17 individuals. He said they tried to make $329,449 worth of transactions but were successful in making just $179,676. The merchants rejected the rest of the transactions because the cardholder reported unauthorized transactions on their cards or because the cards had been maxed out, Van Marter said.
The one thing the 17 victims had in common is that they ate at the same restaurant, he said. He said the restaurant is not in Hawaii but gave no other details.
