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Investigation Uncovers Major Credit Card Manufacturing Ring at Best Buy in Thousand Oaks
By Anonymous — Monday, March 30th, 2009
 Ventura County Sheriff's Department Location: Best Buy 390 N. Moorpark Rd. Thousand Oaks, Ca. Arrestees, Address, Age An investigation into what began as an elaborate shoplifting scheme at a Thousand Oaks retail store, led to the seizure of an extensive identification and credit card manufacturing operation based in a West Hollywood apartment. Detective Russell King began looking into a shoplifting incident at Best Buy that occurred in August, 2008. Best Buy loss prevention had reported several incidents involving two men who purchased high-end televisions and then used their receipts to steal additional merchandise. A break in the case came when a Best Buy employee followed the men outside and wrote down a license plate. The investigation led to Aleksey Prokopyev of West Hollywood. Last week, investigators from the Thousand Oaks Police Department, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, and the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) served a search warrant at Prokopyev’s apartment, where they found more than one thousand counterfeit credit and gift cards, along with specialized equipment to manufacture credit cards and identification cards. Investigators arrested all four men for a variety of charges, including criminal conspiracy and commercial burglary. All are being held without bail at the Pre-Trial Detention Facility in Ventura. All of the men were in the United States illegally, and are being held on immigration violations in addition to the other criminal charges. Two of the men are Russian nationals, another is from Lithuania, while the fourth is |
