Bed-Stuy Crew 'Pop Out Boyz' Busted After Rapping About Credit-Card Scam

The stash. Photos courtesy of the Manhattan DA

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — A local rap crew (or criminal crew, if you ask the NYPD) was busted this week for running a massive "credit card fraud and larceny scheme" in New York City over the past year, according to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

Thirty-nine members and associates of the Pop Out Boyz, many of them teens from Bed-Stuy, allegedly purchased dozens of strangers' credit-card info on the Deep Web — then used the stolen info to manufacture fake cards and purchase more than $250,000 in swag from Barneys New York.

Earlier this year, the Pop Out Boyz rap group released "For a Scammer," a song about all the dirty things a lady would do to get with a credit-card scammer.

A police source told Patch that NYPD detectives did become aware of the song while investigating the larger Pop Out Boyz organization. However, the case doesn't hinge on it.

"This evidence is really based on traditional investigative methods — records, video, etc.," our source said.

Indeed, a criminal complaint provided to Patch by the DA's Office contains more than 300 pages detailing the exact card numbers stolen and when/where they were used. (Mostly at Barneys.)

When NYPD cops raided homes tied to the scheme — located for the most part in Bed-Stuy's 79th and 81st Precincts — they found a treasure trove of "equipment used in connection with the manufacturing of forged credit cards, including a card printer, multiple embossers, a tipper, and card re-encoders," according to the DA. A portion of the loot is pictured above.

At the brownstone at 165 Monroe St., for example, investigators said they recovered a trove of forged cards, as well as an embosser and a tipper.

The popular Breakfast Club radio show called out the Pop Out Boyz as their "donkey of the day" for Wednesday. (Listen below.)

Here's a list of the alleged scammers — all but five of them from Brooklyn. They've been charged with varying degrees and combinations of grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, petit larceny, attempted petit larceny, criminal possession of a forged instrument, criminal possession of stolen property and conspiracy.

• ROBBIE BLACK, 22
• CHARLES BRELAND, 21
• KARISMA BUTLER, 19
• TYQUAN COLEY, 22
• TOMEIK DARNES, 25
• LARRY DATHAN, 33
• ANTHONY DORSETTE, 20
• KEVIN EDWARD, 19
• LUTHER EDWARDS, 22
• COURTNEY FORSTER, 21
• DAVID FRIEDSON, 19
• STEPHEN FRYE, 29
• AKIEL JOSEPH, 21
• SHAKIMA JOSEPH, 23
• KAAMAR LABREW, 29
• KEYON LANG, 20
• NIKELYAN LEWIS, 21
• JAMAL MAYS, 22
• ANTHONY MCKOY, 21
• JUWUAN MILEY, 20
• SHYHEIM MOORE, 19
• ABRAM OJOFETIMI, 20
• DASHAWN PARKER, 21
• KHALIL PARKS, 19
• SHARIF PERSON, 20
• JAMES SALLY, 31
• TRISTON STUART, 27
• ALEXIA SYKES, 19
• MALACHI SYLVAN, 16
• MARCUS TAYLOR, 18
• DYMOND THOMAS, 19
• WILLIAM TOWNSEND, 23
• KAISHAUN TRISVAN, 21
• SHATIQUA WATSON, 23
• JANILE WHITTED, 22
• ANTHONY WIGGINS, 24
• JEFFERY WILLIAMS, 24
• DOMINIQUE WILSON, 25
• JEVON WILSON, 34

Wiggins, 24, was photographed spitting into the camera lens of a New York Daily News photographer as he was dragged into court Wednesday. (As in, drops of his spit actually appeared in the shot.)

Below, a photo retrospective of the neighborhood Pop Out Boyz in better days.