WESTLAKE, Ohio — A quick-thinking clerk at a local gas station led police to a multi-state fraud investigation. Westlake Police said a man was using stolen credit card numbers on his phone to attempt to buy gift cards.
The scheme is so sophisticated that Homeland Security is now involved. The tip came from an observant clerk at the Speedway on Bradley and Detroit roads. The clerk noticed the man at the register attempting to buy multiple gift cards using tap-to-pay on his phone.
Police said the man kept swiping through dozens of cards on his phone, and that caught the clerk's attention. Some of those cards were accepted, some were declined, until he was able to purchase a Macy's gift card.
Police tracked the suspect, Qiang Xu, to a home on E. 47th Street in Cleveland. Inside the home, they found the 38-year-old, who is now in the Westlake jail on felony identity fraud charges.
"When they got in the house, there were multiple people in the house, multiple computers going. When you look at your computer, it has different windows open. Well, there were hundreds and hundreds of windows open on these computers because they were facilitating scams in many ways. Probably doing phishing schemes and things like that to try to get these credit card numbers," said Captain Jerry Vogel, with Westlake Police.
Xu was tracked down using his license plate number, which Westlake Police said is tied to both a Cleveland address and a Las Vegas, Nevada, address. Several other people inside the home on E. 47th Street were questioned, and Homeland Security is investigating.
Xu was tracked across Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
"The victim was in North Carolina. We talked to them, and their card number had been compromised; it had already been canceled by the credit card company. So, this criminal in Westlake was using this North Carolina woman's credit card to buy gift cards," said Vogel.
As always, police remind you not to share any personal information in response to unexpected emails, texts, or calls.
"I'm sure it's more then these couple people that were involved in Cleveland, again, it's pretty intricate involving foreign languages and things like that. It will take a lot of unraveling exactly what's going on," Vogel said.
