Two Florida men involved in a $2 million gas-pump skimming scheme are headed to prison
Two Florida men are facing federal prison time for their role in a scheme to use card skimmers at gas stations resulting in over $2 million of stolen money, according to court records.
Hugo Hernandez, 35, of Miami Lakes and Marlon Palacios, 38, of Cape Coral are two of the 11 people involved in a federal case alleging they set up card skimmers in New York gas pumps and laundered the money they stole from those devices.
Hernandez was charged with fraud and money laundering, landing him five years in prison and more than $170,000 in fees on Wednesday. Palacios was charged with fraud and identity theft, landing him four months in prison along with a $25,000 penalty. Both pleaded guilty in a New York federal court.
The case involves nine other people, who have either not been sentenced yet or had their court cases sealed.
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Hernandez used his Hialeah company, HH Investments Corp, to buy over 140 of the same parts that were in some card skimmers found by authorities at gas stations in New York, according to court records.
Others allegedly bought more parts and built skimmers, court records said, while some drove from South Florida to put the skimmers in New York gas pumps between 2016 and 2017.
The group then returned to the gas stations and used Bluetooth devices to get information from thousands of credit and debit cards, records alleged.
An online account belonging to Palacios had information associated with just over 2,400 skimmed cards.
The group made fake cards with the stolen data and took out cash using ATMs and money orders, according to records. One unnamed person received $17,000 by mail on a single day in 2017.
Hernandez was involved in depositing 162 money orders worth $173,257 total into his company between 2016 and 2018.
Some went on to launder the cash by purchasing gift cards and reselling them online, according to the records.
Details of the investigation were not immediately available, but court documents said law enforcement found skimming devices in Fonda and New York with some card information Palacios also had in his cloud account.
This story was originally published July 21, 2022 at 4:15 PM.
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