Man Pleads Guilty To Using Fake Credit Cards With Stolen Numbers In 8 Maine Counties

United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II says Roberto Lueje-Rodriguez, 29, of Miami, Florida, pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Bangor to access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Court records show that between January 7 and January 13, 2016, Lueje-Rodriguez and another man used debit and credit card account numbers belonging to bank customers in Maine to make unauthorized purchases totaling more than $50,000.  They used the cards in Penobscot, Knox, Hancock, Piscataquis, Franklin, Somerset, Kennebec, and Androscoggin counties.

Delahanty says each of the debit card account numbers used by the defendant were unique and assigned to one person or, in one instance, to a Maine company.  Lueje-Rodriguez used plastic cards made to look as though they were authentic debit or credit cards.  Each of the cards was encoded with true account numbers on the magnetic strip.  The name embossed on each of the cards used by the defendant was “David Cuan”, which was not the name of any of the true account holders.

Lueje-Rodriguez faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the access device fraud and a mandatory minimum period of imprisonment of 2 years for the aggravated identity theft crime.  He will also be ordered to pay restitution.  He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.

The investigation was conducted by the Maine State Police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations, the Bangor Police Department, the Brewer Police Department, the Dexter Police Department, the Dover-Foxcroft Police Department, the Ellsworth Police Department, the Hampden Police Department, the Lincoln Police Department, the Millinocket Police Department, the Newport Police Department, the Pittsfield Police Department, the Rockland Police Department, the Saco Police Department, and the Waterville Police Department