U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite announced that CLIFF DURIO, age 25, of New Orleans, was sentenced today after previously pleading guilty to a one-count Indictment charging him with fraud in connection with access devices.
U.S. District Judge Lance M. Africk sentenced DURIO to 78 months in prison and 3 years of supervised release, and ordered him to pay over $35,000 in restitution to the victims of his fraud.
According to court documents, DURIO knowingly and with intent to defraud, possessed numerous counterfeit and unauthorized access devices, including credit cards and gift cards. DURIO was arrested at the New Orleans Airport after TSA screeners, while investigating a suspicious object in his luggage, discovered a bundle of over 500 credit cards. The cards were encoded and embossed with stolen accounts numbers, several of which had reported fraud. In total, DURIO was found with 46 gift cards with an aggregate value of $7,000, as well as 738 fraudulent credit cards with a total credit limit of over $4.3 million.
U.S. Attorney Polite praised the work of the U.S. Secret Service in investigating this matter. Assistant United States Attorney David Haller was in charge of the prosecution.
--DOJ Eastern District of Louisiana