Three men are facing a combined 24 counts of forgery for a new gift card scam which police say spanned stores throughout Milwaukee and Waukesha counties and crossed state lines.
Gamlet Kazarian, 43, and Gevorg Poghosyan, 41, are each facing nine counts, and Ashot Tamamyan, 42, is facing six counts, of forgery as a party to a crime, online court records show. Each felony count includes up to a $10,000 fine and/or prison time up to six years, according to a criminal complaint filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
According to the complaint:
Waukesha police were investigating a report of a Visa card fraud scheme happening at Walgreens and Target stores in Waukesha County. During the investigation, officers discovered Elm Grove Police were looking into a similar scheme.
Suspects would leave Visa gift cards behind with a forged barcode sticker which would transfer money the purchaser loaded on the gift card to a scammer's card instead.
Elm Grove and Greenfield police identified two vehicles involved in the incidents, and used GPS trackers to follow them.
Police followed one of the vehicles to several Walgreens stores and a CVS in Waukesha and found multiple altered Visa prepaid cards in the stores after the suspects left.
Surveillance showed Kazarian entering the stores.
Police conducted a traffic stop of the vehicle and found Kazarian, Poghosyan and Tamamyan inside.
Police identified Tamamyan as the person seen in surveillance video from an Elm Grove Walgreens placing fraudulent gift cards onto a rack. Tamamyan was also spotted purchasing gift cards with gift cards at a Walgreens in South Milwaukee and placing tampered gift cards on a rack.
Poghosyan was identified by police previously through a passport after checking into a hotel in Indiana and using gift cards to pay for the stay.
RELATED: Here's how scammers used gift cards to try to rip off customers at a Franklin Walgreens
Police found a duffle bag in the vehicle stuffed with gallon-size plastic bags full of prepaid Visa cards with the cardboard packaging still attached. About 200 prepaid cards were recovered in the bag, some altered with a forged barcode.
After the traffic stop, police obtained a search warrant for a home in Greenfield where the second car was located. Before executing the warrant, a woman came out and got into the vehicle carrying two suitcases.
Police stopped her and searched the vehicle, recovering thousands of gift cards from the suitcases. The woman told police she found the suitcases in her apartment and was going to dispose of them.
Throughout the investigation, police traced gift card purchases as well as purchases of other gift cards with gift cards through various stores such as Walgreens, Target, Home Depot, Kwik Trip and Nordstrom Rack. The purchases were made in South Milwaukee, Oak Creek, Franklin, Wauwatosa, Milwaukee, Brookfield and Waukesha, and in Illinois and Indiana.
Contact Erik S. Hanley at (262) 875-9467 or erik.hanley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ES_Hanley.
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November 22, 2019 at 11:04PM
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Three men tampered with thousands of gift cards in the Milwaukee area in a multi-state fraud scheme, complaint says - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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