Employees of a Key Largo hotel who have since been terminated from employment are suspects in a conspiracy to steal credit card numbers from customers for their own personal gain.
Detective Bob Dosh was assigned to investigate the case in July after the manager of the Post Card Inn reported the crime to the Sheriff’s Office. The manager said their “operation team” discovered employees had been involved in a scheme to steal credit card information from the hotel’s computer system, then had used that information for their own gain. He turned a large amount of records over to Detective Dosh for further investigation.
During the course of his investigation, Detective Dosh discovered one employee, 38 year old Anthony Burley of Homestead, would use his own and other employee’s passwords to access the computer system in an attempt to misdirect any possible investigations into the activity. He would take credit card information from the computer system and ask other employees who were in on this scheme to hold the information for him and then to give it back to him when he asked for it.
The investigation revealed employees would ask Burley to use the stolen credit card information to purchase items for them. In return, they would pay him half the price of the items purchased.
Detective Dosh’s investigation resulted in warrants being issued for Burley and three other suspects. All of them said they knew Burley was stealing customer credit card information and did not report it. Three of the suspects said they helped Burley conceal the credit card information and helped Burley hide his actions from hotel management.
One suspect, 26 year old Ashley Collier of Homestead, admitted knowing Burley was using employee passwords to access the computer system and knew he was collecting stolen credit card information using those passwords.
Two other suspects, 39 year old Consuela Morris of Florida City and 23 year old William Lewis of Homestead, admitted accepting stolen credit card information and keeping it for Burley.
All four suspects were charged with five counts of committing a criminal conspiracy, one count of participating in a scheme to defraud using communications technology and five counts of fraud - using the identification of another person without their consent. The victims who were uncovered during the course of the investigation reported fraudulent activity on their credit cards totaling $4,186.97.
Lewis was arrested and charged in Miami-Dade County on October 27th. He is currently out of jail after posting bond on the warrant, which was set at $88,000.
Burley was arrested on November 3rd in Miami-Dade County. He was returned to Monroe County to face charges on Wednesday. His bond is set at $110,000.
Morris and Collier have not yet been arrested. Bond set on their warrants is set at $88,000 each.