Two Mexican Nationals Arrested At McAllen U.S. Border Crossing With 112 Mexican Bank Brand Fraudulent Credit Cards

Mary Carmen Garcia and Daniel Guardiola Dominguez

Both suspects bought tens of thousands of dollars with fraudulent credit cards using data stolen from South Texas Target customers during the Minneapolis based Target security breach involving millions of dollars.

By H. Nelson Goodson

January 20, 2014

McAllen, Texas - On Monday, McAllen Police Department Chief Victor Rodriguez announced Sunday's arrest of Mary Carmen Garcia, 27, and Daniel Guardiola Dominguez, 28 from Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico at the U.S. border crossing Anzaldua's International Bridge after U.S. Custom agents discovered 112 fraudulent credit cards made with Mexican bank brand cards. The suspects were attempting to cross into the U.S. to once again initiate a second spending spree at Walmart, Toy R Us and Best Buy. 

On January 12, they were able to buy tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise with credit card stolen data information from South Texas Target customers. The couple managed to transport the merchandise into Mexico before the banks would determine that the purchases were from fraudulent credit and debit cards data stolen a month ago. The merchandise was distributed to other people at the border town involved in the scheme and then taken to Mexico. 

The Secret Service confirmed that 112 credit cards from Mexican banks confiscated from the suspects contained the account information of South Texas Target customers. The Mexican bank credit cards were made from account information to process expenditures from the Minneapolis based Target security breach that included stolen data from 40 million credit and debit accounts and personal data from 70 million Target customers. The suspects confessed to the fraudulent expenditures. 

The break came when federal authorities reviewed video surveillance footage at stores and narrowed the credit card fraud scheme to the suspects and a vehicle with Mexican plates.

Federal authorities and McAllen police got warrants and then waited for the couple to return to the U.S. and continue their fraud scheme. The suspects had the same vehicle when they were attempting to cross into the U.S. on Sunday, according to Rodriguez. 

Rodriguez says, the Target data breach was connected to Europe and Russian hackers.

False credit and debit cards confiscated.

Rinat Shabayev and Sergey Tarasov

(HNNUSA) - The Los Angeles cyber security company IntelCrawler reported that it trace the cyber BlackPos/Haptoxa (Potatoe) malware attack of the Minneapolis based Target customer credit and debit card data breach to Russian hacker Rinat Shabayev, 23, aka, "Ree4," of Saratov and his alleged technical assistant Sergey Tarasov, 17, of Novosibirsk.
Shabayev told Life News in Russia that he created the malware BlackPos and that other friends (hackers) added code features to it. At least, 40 versions of the malware were sold to cybercriminals in Europe and other countries.
Tarasov has denied his involvement and has sought legal advise after his mother got sick when a news report named him as an accomplice to the Target data breach, according to a Russian newspaper.
Shabayev admitted that he was aware of his malware that was originally created to test security systems could be used by cybercriminals to gain access to retail stores systems.
The BlackPos malware might be also linked to the recent attack of the Neiman Marcus attack, according to IntelCrawler.