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Saturday, June 04, 2005
Mall security nabs woman making purchases with ‘fake’ credit card
By Mia E. Abellana
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
A woman who nearly got away with thousands worth of merchandise using a fake credit card was arrested at the Ayala Center Cebu Thursday afternoon.
Fame Santos Navarro, 27, had with her four fake credit cards and was able to make purchases at Global Village, The Maze, TCA (The Computer Authority), Odyssey and JV Shop ‘N Shop Co.
TCA assistant office administrator Jobell Bravo was on alert after realizing that he sold to a certain Joey Villena P12,000 worth of goods with a fake credit card.
Since he said most of these syndicates return to the store they victimize, Bravo said he waited 20 minutes before another woman tried to purchase something in the store.
Bravo said he suspected her card was fake because the blue box surrounding the Visa logo of the credit card was not in bold lines.
He added that the first six digits of the card number did not match the code that the banks provided to them.
After scrutinizing her credit card, Bravo called the attention of security guard Benjie Lucas.
Lucas said that when Bravo asked for help, he immediately responded and asked Navarro where she was from.
When Navarro said she was from Iloilo, he remembered information he got at noon that day to be on the lookout for two women allegedly from Iloilo City, who are using fake HSBC credit cards.
Seized items
With this in mind, Lucas brought her to the security office for investigation.
Seized from Navarro were four credit cards (2 from Citibank, one from HSBC and one from Standard Chartered), a Nokia 1100 cellular phone, a Nextbase Walking Cinema DVD player, a Nintendo DS, an Apple I-Pod mini and P4,000 cash she allegedly offered to Bravo in exchange for her freedom.
The cards she used bear the name Francine Ponce.
Navarro declined to talk when sought for comment.
The Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Bureau was called on to make a follow-up operation on Navarro’s companions, Roy Gomez and Michelle Flores.
SPO1 Filomeno Menda-ros said they waited for the two at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport as they were scheduled to take a flight to Manila at 8 p.m., but they did not show up.
Mendaros believes they were warned about Navarro’s arrest and either skipped the flight or got on an earlier one.
Distinguishing marks
Aside from the physical appearance of the cards and the first six-digit code, Bravo said they use an ultraviolet light to detect the authenticity of the card.
He said that when placed under ultraviolet light, a dove appears on Visa cards while the letters “MC” appear on MasterCards.
Bravo admitted that he was a victim of an international syndicate busted earlier this year and that he lost P300,000 worth of laptops, a printer and ink cartridges.
Yuichi P. Sagino, 38, of Nagano, Japan, and his two alleged counterparts—Filipinos Rachel Niala, 25, of San Roque, Mambaling, Cebu City, and Luis Go, 43, of Sunview, M.H. del Pilar St., Manila—were arrested by members of the Mabolo Police Station last January for producing fake credit cards in an uptown hotel.
Four persons were arrested in Mandaue City in 2003 for using fake credit cards in running up purchases worth P900,000.
They were released and all 12 criminal cases against them provisionally dismissed when the banks reportedly did not cooperate in the prosecution.
(June 4, 2005 issue)
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