Detectives smashed a counterfeit credit card ring based out of Flushing last week in which three individuals created phony plastic to purchase more than $100,000 in high-end retail items, prosecutors announced on March 16.
Jinwei Chen, 34, Deng Deng Li, 27 and Yue Yuan, 27, were busted following a March 9 raid of a home on Quince Avenue as a result of an investigation that the NYPD-FBI Joint Major Theft Task Force conducted.
During the search, police recovered two credit card embossers, two credit card reader/writer devices, two credit card stampers and allegedly more than 400 forged credit cards, 85 fake driver’s licenses and 750 blank credit cards.
According to Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, the three perpetrators ran a credit card forging mill out of the Quince Avenue home. They wound up using the fake cards to go on shopping sprees at luxurious retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s.
While raiding the home, cops also found receipts for purchases made at these stores along with more than $22,000 in cash and $100,000 in unopened packages of makeup, skin care and fragrances from Lancome, Clinique, Shiseido, Yves Saint Laurent, Tom Ford, Chanel, Gucci and Cartier. They also located cellphones, Canada Goose winter jackets and Beats by Dr. Dre headphones.
Brown said the suspects also had plenty of firepower in the residence “where a 2-year-old baby lives.” Detectives seized a loaded, .380-caliber Smith and Wesson firearm, a loaded 9mm Taurus Millennium G2 handgun and ammunition. A box of the painkiller ketamine was also recovered.
Chen, Li and Yuan were each charged with second-degree grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a forged instrument, criminal possession of forgery devices, criminal possession of a firearm and endangering the welfare of a child.
Following their arraignment, Chen and Li were each ordered held on $100,000 and $50,000 bail, respectively, while Yuan was released on her own recognizance. They are all due back in court on April 17.
