11 Charged In Miami-Dade Credit Card Gas Ring

MIAMI, FL — Miami-Dade law enforcement officials charged 11 people in a massive organized credit card fuel theft ring operating around the Miami area. State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle and Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez announced the arrests during a joint press conference on Tuesday afternoon. The list of charges ranged from possession of skimming devices to racketeering and obtaining fuel fraudulently.

"A band of credit card and gasoline thieves have made your daily commute more dangerous than you could have ever thought," declared Fernandez Rundle in announcing the charges.

Officials identified the alleged ring leader of the gang as Adryan Hernandez Morera, who operated AHM Trucking, Inc.

The arrests involve not only so-called credit-card skimmers, which have been found in South Florida restaurants, gas stations and even drive-thru food businesses, but also fuel bladders that can be installed in vehicles to create an illegal gasoline dispensing system.

The bandits are believed to have used stolen credit cards to purchase some or all of the fuel that was then sold illegally to black market customers.

"The use of these concealed bladders allows subjects to secretly fill these containers with several hundred gallons of fuel at a time without drawing the attention of unsuspecting fuel station employees or ordinary citizens," according to court documents.

Skimmers are small devices that can be affixed to a card reader, allowing a thief to illegally collect credit and debit card information from unsuspecting customers. Most commonly, card skimmers are placed on ATMs, gas station pumps or self-checkout machines.

"The individuals who obtain the fuel from the gas stations will almost universally purchase the fuel using counterfeit credit cards," court documents explained. "Because most commercial fuel pumps are configured to automatically shut off once the transaction reaches $100, filling a high capacity fuel bladder will typically require the subject to either conduct multiple transactions at the same pump (which can raise suspicion from the employees) or visit multiple gas stations in succession."

Photos courtesy Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office