Police seek skimming suspects
Four alleged suspects in a credit card skimming scam in Amwell Township are shown in these surveillance photos released by state police.
State police are looking for information about five suspects who used credit card information stolen on a skimming device placed on a pump at an Amwell Township gasoline station and then used to make purchases in the Pittsburgh area.
A skimming device was placed on the card reader at a gas pump at the Lone Pine One Stop Exxon gas station on Amity Ridge Road in May. The compromised bank account information and personal identification numbers were used in July and August in Pittsburgh’s North Side and Strip District, Brentwood and Whitehall as well as in the state of California.
Trooper Sarah Teagarden, who is investigating the identity theft, said that the operator of the gas station did not realize one of the card readers was compromised until he was notified by a bank.
“Banks have a way to pinpoint where the cards were used,” Teagarden said. “Most of the victims had their credit card information used between July 27 and Aug. 1.”
Teagarden said information on the skimmers could be used by the thieves or sold to others.
State police have released surveillance photographs of suspects using the credit card information in the Pittsburgh area.
A white woman with a thin build used the card at a walk-up automated teller machines on Saw Mill Run Boulevard, Town Square Way and Penn Avenue in Pittsburgh. A black woman with a heavy build used the stolen information to make a cash withdrawal at PNC Park.
A white man with a thin build, glasses and goatee used the information at ATMs in Brentwood and Whitehall. A white man with a thin build used the information at a Saw Mill Run ATM. A fifth man used the card at an ATM at Piatt Place.
Teagarden said the station employees now inspect the pumps each shift, but she added sometimes the skimmers are hard to detect. Customers of the station operated by Jacobs Petroleum were notified by letter that it appears the skimmer was placed on the pumps in late May. The president of Stuck Enterprise Co., which owns Jacobs Petroleum, told the Observer-Reporter earlier this month an inspection of the pumps did not reveal a skimmer and it appears the device was put on the pumps for a period of time and then removed.
Anyone with information is asked to call state police at 724-223-5200.