Individuals involved in a major conspiracy to commit credit card fraud and identity theft were indicted last week. The Justice Department claims that those arrested were involved in the largest case of its kind ever prosecuted in this country. The defendants were allegedly stealing credit card and debit card information and then reselling the information. Prosecutors believe that as many as 130 million numbers were involved thereby implicating many in New Jersey. The ringleader of the conspiracy, a 28 year old resident of the US, has been in custody since 2008 on separate charges of theft of computer data.

As technology and the use of credit cards becomes more and more prevalent in NJ, so too is the incident of fraud involving the computer, credit cards, and indentity theft. We have occasion to defend more and more individuals charged with these offenses and the law can be particularly problematic in this regard. In this regard, the legislature has recently adopted and/or amended New Jersey criminal laws related to tampering with computers and identity theft. We find that a thorough understanding of the technology, as well as audit principals and the law, are really handy in these cases. I have little doubt that the feds are well up to speed on this fronts as it relates to this case.