US Army Guardsmen Convicted for Bitcoin Credit Card Fraud

Two members of the US Army National Guard have been convicted of running a credit card fraud scheme involving bitcoin.

According to the US Attorney’s Office in the District of Maryland, the two individuals, James Stewart and Vincent Grant, were indicted for using bitcoins to purchase stolen credit and debit card numbers of individuals and businesses from foreign websites. The two were first prosecuted last year, as previously reported by CoinDesk.

The defendants were accused of using magnetic strip re-encoding tools to apply stolen numbers to dummy cards, after which they would buy merchandise from Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores at US military bases, as well as other locations in Maryland and elsewhere.

The federal jury found Stewart guilty on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Grant was also convicted for conspiracy to commit access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.

A total of five Army National Guard members were arrested and charged.

Of the other three in the case, Derrick Shelton and Quentin Stewart previously pleaded guilty for committing wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, while Jamal Moody pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.

Shelton and James and Quentin Stewart face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while Grant and Moody are subject to a maximum seven-and-half year sentence. A mandatory minimum of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft, on top of any other sentence, also apply to all five involved.

US Army image via Shutterstock