New York City NY April 28 2016 More than three dozen members of a Bloods-affiliated gang were charged Tuesday with running a $414,000 identity-theft ring focused on making purchases with stolen credit card accounts at Barneys, prosecutors said Tuesday.
In all, 39 gang members, who called themselves the “Pop Out Boys,” used stolen bank information it pulled from the Dark Web to create their own credit cards to shop at Barneys and Saks Fifth Avenue, said NYPD Inspector Joseph Dowling.
Their gang name referred to their flashy lifestyle. “They sort of pop out, wearing expensive clothes, a lot of popping the cork on champagne bottles,” Dowling said.
One defendant, Larry Dathan, raps under the name Big B’Z, Dowling said. In one song, “Trapping out da Uber,” he raps about using the car service for getting around while committing crimes.
Detectives executed eight search warrants, finding five handguns and five “credit card mills,” which included computers, credit-card making equipment and cash, Dowling said.
Investigators recovered the equipment at the apartments of defendants in Brooklyn and Queens.
“In at least one case, an individual is accused of making nearly twenty trips to the same luxury department store to buy designer clothes and merchandise,” DA Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement.
The suspects bought and resold Goyard handbags and other luxury items, then used the cash to fund nightclub outings and trips to Miami, California and Georgia, police said.
Dowling said the crew has 59 members, with ages ranging from 16 to the 30s.
Detectives caught wind of the alleged fraud while investigating another case at Barneys. They saw some of the defendants shopping with a stack of credit cards, Dowling said.
If one didn’t work, they’d use another one,” he said.
Younger gang members, millennials in particular, have been moving towards credit card and identity theft crimes because they grew up using computers, Dowling said.