MIAMI MAN DETAINED IN FEDERAL CUSTODY IN ALLEGED FIVE-STATE “CASHOUT SCHEME”
United States Attorney Aaron L. Weisman
District of Rhode Island
MIAMI MAN DETAINED IN FEDERAL CUSTODY IN ALLEGED FIVE-STATE “CASHOUT SCHEME”
PROVIDENCE – A Miami, Fla., man who allegedly made multiple large cash withdrawals with the use of fraudulent credit cards from ATMs at bank branch offices in Warwick, R.I., and Seekonk, Mass., has been ordered detained in federal custody in Rhode Island on fraud charges.
Dean Emmanuel Colin, 26, of Miami, was ordered detained by U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Patricia A. Sullivan at his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Providence on charges of conspiracy to commit access device fraud and access device fraud.
Colin was arrested on May 23, 2019, by Seekonk, Mass., police after bank security officials notified the United States Secret Service that they were monitoring live video from a Seekonk bank branch office ATM of an individual allegedly making repeated fraudulent withdrawals of large sums of cash using multiple cards. The Secret Service notified the Seekonk Police Department who responded to the bank and detained Colin.
An investigation by the United States Secret Service and Warwick Police also determined that Colin allegedly fits the description of an individual who one day earlier made repeated large fraudulent withdrawals from an ATM in Warwick, R.I., at a branch office of the same bank, totaling more than $35,000.
The United States Secret Service is currently investigating an ongoing “cashout scheme” conspiracy that has fraudulently obtained nearly $1 million dollars from ATM machines in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. According to court documents, to date, ATM transactions connected to Colin by video surveillance involve at least 29 different American Express Platinum account numbers.
A “cashout scheme” is a criminal conspiracy whereby individuals utilize stolen or otherwise compromised bank or credit card company account numbers encoded on access devices such as ATM cards, credit cards, gift cards, and hotel keys, to withdraw large sums of currency from ATMs. These “cashout schemes” are often multi-layer conspiracies wherein computer hackers and their associates steal confidential financial information, including business and personal account numbers and personal identification numbers. The hackers often transmit this information to co-conspirators through an array of online communication mechanisms. Ultimately, the purchasers of the stolen financial information use the account numbers to encode plastic cards with magnetic stripes, which they then use to withdraw currency from ATMs.
According to court documents, at the time of Colin’s arrest and as the result of court-authorized searches of a rental vehicle Colin was driving at the time of his arrest and of a hotel room he was staying at in Foxboro, Mass., law enforcement seized $65,920 in cash, 11 cards with magnetic strips, a card reader/writer and USB cable used to encode bank cards, rubber bands used to wrap currency, two cellular telephones, a receipt from the U.S. Post Office in Warwick, R.I. for a package mailed to Colin’s residence in Florida, and an airline boarding pass in Colin’s name from Miami to Boston on May 22, 2019.
The arrest of Colin is announced by United States Attorney Aaron L. Weisman, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service Stephen Marks, Seekonk Police Chief Frank John, and Warwick Police Chief Colonel Rick Rathbun.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. McAdams.
A criminal complaint is merely an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.