On May 14, 2018, Julio Arjona Gomez, 51, of Miami Gardens, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for operating a fraudulent credit card manufacturing facility in Hialeah.
Benjamin G. Greenberg, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida; Brian Swain, Special Agent in Charge, United States Secret Service (USSS); and Juan J. Perez, Director, Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD), made the announcement.
United States District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga sentenced Chavez to 144 months in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release. Arjona previously pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1029(b)(2); one count of producing, using, and trafficking in counterfeit access devices, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1029(a)(1); and one count of aggravated identity theft, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1028A(a)(1).
According to court documents, beginning in November 2016, through November 2017, Arjona operated a counterfeit credit card manufacturing facility in Hialeah, Florida. To facilitate the counterfeit credit card business, Arjona utilized an email account to traffic in thousands of stolen credit card account numbers and to receive orders for counterfeit credit cards. He also received photographs, in order to produce counterfeit state identification cards. Arojona received payments, in exchange for the counterfeit credit cards. Based on the fraud scheme, law enforcement agents obtained a search warrant for the facility. During a search of the operational facility, on Nov. 14, 2017, agents identified a room that was dedicated to manufacturing counterfeit credit cards. Law enforcement recovered thousands of counterfeit credit cards, over 50,000 blank credit card plastics, several credit card printers, a magnetic strip encoder, modified gasoline pump skimmer devices, computers, and electronic media storage devices or USB flash drives.
Arjona was held accountable at sentencing for $1,944,000 in intended losses.
Mr. Greenberg commended the investigative efforts of the USSS and MDPD in this matter. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan D. Stratton.
Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
