A 24-year-old man from Miami, Florida, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court to conspiracy to commit access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Pekka Jaakkola/Getty Images
Pekka Jaakkola/Getty Images
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Court records show that between about November 2015 and June 2016, Yaisder Herrera Gargallo and others used stolen credit and debit card numbers to purchase merchandise. In June 2016, as part of the conspiracy, the defendant and others traveled to Maine. On June 14, 2016, the defendant purchased over $400 worth of merchandise at a Portland Walgreens using a stolen card number belonging to a victim from New Gloucester, Maine. The next day, after the defendant made another fraudulent purchase using a different card number at another Portland Walgreens, store personnel notified the police and provided a license plate number.

On June 18, 2016, a Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office deputy stopped the vehicle in which the defendant and three other men were traveling. The stop led to their arrest and the discovery of merchandise, numerous fraudulent credit cards, and a laptop computer. The laptop computer was later found to contain credit card numbers and related data, including the stolen card number the defendant used to make the fraudulent purchase on June 14, 2016.

The defendant faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the conspiracy charge. He faces a mandatory sentence of two years in prison on the aggravated identity theft charge, to be served consecutively to the sentence imposed for the conspiracy charge. He will be sentenced after the completion of a presentence investigation report by the U.S. Probation Office.

The case was investigated by the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office, the Portland Police Department and the U.S. Secret Service.

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