Call Center Workers Steal Credit Card Info, Sell to Gangs

It is a cybercrime operation stretching from U.S. living rooms to Belize City restaurants and it’s fueled by stolen credit card data and an underground network now linked to gang activity. News Five has been investigating this story which exposes how sensitive financial information is being harvested, sold, and used in Belize. Joining me is the reporter following the story, Paul Lopez. Paul, tell us what News 5 has uncovered.

 

Paul Lopez, Reporting

Joseph David O’Donnell of Long Island, New York, and Hannah Elizabeth Deits of Nashville, Tennessee, are two of dozens of victims of a massive credit card scam being perpetrated in Belize. For weeks this station has been investigating how employees in the BPO sector have been stealing credit card information from US citizens to make purchases in Belize. The volume of evidence we have collected so far is staggering and shocking.

 

News Five has obtained over four hundred chargeback receipts. And that’s only from ONE restaurant in Belize City where customers used stolen credit card information. Chon Saan Palace has become a prime target because of their mobile app. Chon Saan has lost thousands of dollars in revenue. And this is because when you use a credit card, there is a processing period, so the money is not deducted immediately. The charge first shows as pending, and if the bank detects any possible fraud or scam, it can block the transaction and prevent the payment from going through.

 

Here is how it works. Call center agents across Belize City are violating their company’s Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, or PCI Standard, by sneaking in phones and recording sensitive data like credit card numbers and the CVV. They then would use this information to place orders on the Chon Saan app and either have the food delivered or pick it up. They get their food, but Chon Saan doesn’t get the money. News Five has confirmed with highly placed sources in several call centers and law enforcement that this has been happening for quite some time.  And when that sensitive and valuable information gets out, it’s up for the taking. In fact, it’s being sold. Sold to gang members.

 

News Five has processed more than twenty-five percent of the chargeback receipts for Chon Saan Palace. From the amount we have reviewed, thirty-five different stolen credit card numbers were used to make payments over the course of the last two years. For example, credit information belonging to an individual with the last name True was used fourteen times between December third and sixteenth, 2024.  (52) This is a December ninth receipt for sixty-six dollars’ worth of food, including BBQ roast pork, a red Fanta, and fried rice. (63) Two hours prior on the same day, the information was used to purchase two beef chow mein for thirty-two dollars. (62) And an hour before that a fifty-eight-dollar purchase was made for BBQ Wings, Steam Pork Dumplings, and Sweet and Sour Chicken. A total of one hundred and fifty-six dollars in purchases on that day. In total, over the span of thirteen days, five hundred and one dollars was charged to the card.

 

In another instance, a U.S. credit card with the last name Justice was used at least a dozen times between March thirtieth and April eighteenth, 2024. (6) On April second the customer purchased a pepper steak and fruit juice for forty dollars. The delivery was made to the Downtown Plaza. (7) Later that day another customer made a purchase for fried chicken, fried fish fillet, and sweet and sour chicken, valued at ninety-two dollars. (8) And only six minutes later a third order was made for drinks valued at twenty-two dollars. (10) The following day an order was made for one hundred and forty-seven dollars’ worth of food, from chow mein to steak and sweet and sour pork. The business delivered this order to an address on New Road. Between March thirtieth and April eighteenth, nine hundred and forty-three dollars’ worth of charges were placed on Justice’s card. And these details are only scratching the surface.  From eighty orders involving thirty-five fraudulent credit card information within the span of a few months, businessman Lee Mark Chang lost an estimated four thousand dollars.

 

To combat the fraud, Chang began requiring that customers provide identification when using credit cards. So, fraudsters began taking pictures of identification cards and uploading them to the app. Here is another thing: some orders were delivered directly to locations where known call centers are established across the city. (3), (11), (69) And now, it has gotten much bigger than the call centers. News Five has confirmed that known gang members are now selling this credit card information. These two WhatsApp messages are proof that you can buy stolen credit card information off the streets if you know who to contact. You can get names, addresses, card numbers, and CVV codes. We managed to get this secret record of one of the sellers who explained how it works.

 

Voice of: Belize City Resident

“The card done the in the app. So you just order and the card thing done the deh. So you press the card thing for payment and the card thing is already there and you press order and it will order.”

 

And tonight, the questions are piling up. Is the Financial Intelligence Unit already on the trail of this credit card scam ring operating in Belize? What exactly do police know, and how deep does this go? With an operation of this scale, the real question is not just who is behind it, but whether it can be stopped at all. Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez.