Jul 16, 2008 6:13 pm US/Pacific
6 Bay Area Women Arrested In Gift Card Scam
RICHMOND (BCN) ―
Sacramento police announced Tuesday the details of a gift card scam that has netted the arrests of six women, some from Richmond, that are allegedly part of an international crime ring.
A group of women, who investigators are calling the "Richmond Girls," allegedly went on shopping sprees around Northern California, using gift cards with stolen credit card information on them, police said.
Sacramento County Sheriff's Department Detective Sean Smith said that the women, who targeted stores from Hayward to Roseville in eastern Sacramento County, earned the nickname because all of them are either from or have close ties to Richmond.
Smith also said that there's a "significant number of other suspects we're attempting to identify" in the investigation.
The women allegedly wired more than $120,000 to various countries in Eastern Europe, where investigators believe individuals paid for the stolen account numbers.
Sanna Louise "Shilo" Cross, 23, and Dawn Edward, 31, were arrested on Dec. 30, 2007. Cherice Dempsey, 37, and Melissa Anderson, 29, were both arrested on Jan. 19.
Davina Hollier, 27, was arrested Feb. 19, while Ebony McDowell, 21, the last woman of the group to be arrested, was taken into custody on April 10.
The suspects are being held at the Sacramento County Main Jail, and face more than 180 charges of identity theft and fraud between them, police said. Cross, Dempsey and Hollier have pleaded guilty and are facing four to six years in prison. The other three are awaiting trial, with preliminary hearings set for next month.
Investigators recovered more than 65 re-encoded gift cards and more than $1 million in fraudulent credit card transactions, along with $45,000 in cash and an estimated $80,000 in merchandise.
The investigation, spearheaded by the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force, is still ongoing, and has involved various police organizations in Northern California, including Richmond police. The U.S. Secret Service also joined the investigation to look into the international aspect of the case.
"That part of the investigation is obviously beyond our scope," Smith said. "The city isn't going to pay for me to go to St. Petersburg."
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
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