Four Mainland men accused in a significant identity theft and stolen credit card ring in Victoria in March won't go to trial until at least next year.
At a hearing today, a preliminary inquiry into the alleged fraud was set for three days starting July 17, 2013 in Victoria provincial court.
The fraud operation unravelled on March 9 when the owner of the Qoola store at Uptown confronted and then followed three men who tried to steal the store's PIN machine. A Saanich officer going by at the time located the three men in the underground parking lot in a 2000 Mercedes.
Saanich police detectives executed a search warrant at the Hotel Grand Pacific, where the men were staying, and found four point-of-sale machines – three of them determined as stolen –computers, tools and equipment used to compromise the devices. Detectives arrested a fourth suspect at the hotel.
The Mercedes contained credit cards and credit card numbers, and the car was seized by police. Police say the men made fraudulent purchases at the Bay Centre, the Cactus Club, the Hotel Grand Pacific and the Strathcona Hotel.
David Dang, 24, Rodney Boucher, 32, Nicholas Lakomy, 32 and Domingos Usseni, 40, face a slew of fraud charges, and charges related to forging and stealing credit card information, and possession of stolen property. Each man is charged with between 12 and 17 separate criminal counts.
Boucher is the only suspect with a significant criminal record, mainly for petty crimes and assaults in Terrace, Dawson Creek, Surrey and Abbotsford. He was found guilty of fraud and using a stolen credit card in Vancouver last December, and in Whistler in February 2011.
editor@saanichnews.com