Five Japanese men were arrested after federal officials said they attempted to buy more than US$100,000 worth of high-end merchandise with fake credit cards.
The five are believed to be connected with an increasingly sophisticated Japanese ring that has targeted Honolulu and Guam, buying everything from Rolex and Breitling watches to Chanel bags and Christian Dior sunglasses and shipping them back to Japan to sell, said Al Joaquin, special agent in charge of the Asia-Pacific Region Secret Service office in Honolulu.
The shoppers arrested this week began arriving in Honolulu last Sunday and checked into different Waikiki hotels, Joaquin said.
They made their first appearance in federal court Thursday, after Secret Service agents arrested them Wednesday night and Thursday following a four-day shopping binge.
Arrested were Masashi Endo, 50; Mitsuyuki Ono, 37; Masaki Fukazawa, 43; Tatsuya Kumagawa, 19; and Sakura Ogawa, 24. All were ordered to remain in custody until a detention hearing Tuesday.
The arrests were the second of their kind in Honolulu this year. Joaquin said the case mirrors that of another ring that was broken up in Guam last month.
Joaquin said the rings mostly operate the same: Four or five people are recruited by a handler who offers each of them about US$1,000 and a one-week, all-expenses paid shopping spree in Hawaii.
The organizers give each shopper a list of high-end items they want from places such as Tiffany & Co and Louis Vuitton, he said.
Japanese-based credit card scams have been around for years, but technology has produced more realistic-looking fakes.
The rings use consumer account numbers obtained from restaurants or via the Internet, Joaquin said.
"People think these are stolen cards," he said.
"That's just not true. The [cardholders] won't even be aware of what's happened until they get their bill," he said.
The five people arrested this week had about 40 credit cards bearing logos from Visa, MasterCard and JCB -- a major Japanese bank.
Joaquin said the Japanese consulate in Honolulu and Japanese law enforcement are helping to crack down on the organizers of the rings, who might be connected to organized crime in Japan.
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