By Forum Staff
Three Flushing residents have been charged with running a counterfeit credit card operation, in which they allegedly forged charge cards and made tens of thousands of dollars in purchases of designer fragrances, makeup, skin care products and more. Law enforcement also allegedly recovered drugs, handguns and ammunition in the same home where a two-year-old resided.
District Attorney Brown said, “The defendants in this case are accused of operating a sophisticated credit card manufacturing mill with embossing machines, card writers and hundreds of blank credit cards. Police also allegedly recovered receipts from numerous purchases made at high-end department stores.”
The defendants are identified as Jinwei Chen, 34, Deng Deng Li, 27 and Yue Yuan, 27.
They were arraigned and charged with second-degree grand larceny, second-degree criminal possession of stolen property, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, criminal possession of forgery devices, criminal possession of a firearm and endangering the welfare of a child.
Search warrants on the defendants homes netted a loaded .380 caliber Smith and Wesson firearm, a loaded 9mm Taurus Millennium G2 handgun, ammunition, two credit card embossers, two credit card reader/writer machines, two credit card stampers, over 400 forged credit cards, 85 fake driver’s licenses and 750 blank credit cards. A box containing the drug ketamine was also confiscated.
Police also found receipts from shopping sprees, more than $22,000 in cash, and $100,000 of unopened packages of Lancome, Clinique, Shiseido, Yves Saint Laurent, Tom Ford, Chanel, Gucci and Cartier makeup, fragrances and skin care items.
In addition there were Beats by Dr. Dre Headphones, Canada Goose winter coats and cell phones.
