Amador County – The Amador County Sheriff’s Department announced that an investigation into theft of credit card and debit card numbers and identities has been traced to the use of those cards for purchases at Mountain Mike’s Pizza in Martell.

Amador County Undersheriff Jim Wegner released details of the ongoing investigation Tuesday, and recommended “that any customer who used a credit or debit payment card at Mountain Mike’s Pizza in Martell, between October 2010 and April 2011, contact their financial institution and have their debit or credit card number changed.”

Wegner said: “This is a precautionary step as there is no method to determine how many cards were originally compromised, and not yet illegally used.”

Wegner said the Sheriff’s Department “has received over 70 complaints of ATM and credit card fraud in the past six months including an unusually large number of reports in February 2011.”

He said Amador County Sheriff “detectives initiated an investigation at the time in cooperation with the fraud departments of several banking institutions. During the investigation into different potential locations of compromise the actual point of compromise was identified as Mountain Mike’s Pizza in Martell. The owners of Mountain Mike’s have actively cooperated with investigators since first notified of the credit security breach.”

Wegner said the investigation found that “suspects remotely gained access to the Mountain Mike’s Pizza point-of-sale, Internet connected computer, via the installation of malicious software. The software allowed the capture of confidential data from bank ATM and credit cards. This data was then used to create forged credit/debit cards and illegally make purchases ranging from $40 to over $1,000. The fraudulent purchases have been reported from a variety of locations worldwide, including Florida, United Kingdom (London), Australia, France and Iceland.”

“Sheriff’s Detectives, working closely with the affected banking institutions, and banking fraud departments and their investigators discovered that the compromise occurred on or about October 2010,” Wegner said. “The malicious software was identified and deleted from Mountain Mike’s system in April 2011. It is unknown at this time how many debit and/or credit cards were compromised during the six month period the malicious software was active.”

He said “ongoing investigation into this matter discovered that debit/credit information stolen prior to April 2011 continued to be used for illegal purchases even after that date as part of the scheme by the perpetrators to delay discovery.”

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