ORLANDO, Fla. – It was an especially unique credit-card-skimming bust at a gas pump: a little-known Federal agency – the General Services Administration (GSA) – got involved with a Central Florida case involving 1,200 stolen credit cards, some of which were used to steal gas.

The GSA is the arm of the Federal Government that is responsible for procurement (purchasing vehicles, equipment, etc.) for government employees.

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And the GSA, like many Federal agencies, houses its own Office of Inspector General (OIG).

Assistant Special Agent in Charge Rob Rudolph and Special Agent in Charge (of the entire Southeast U.S. region) Floyd Martinez are both GSA-OIG investigators who were involved in the case.

How did News 6 learn about the case?

News 6 Anchor Erik von Ancken got a call from the State Attorney’s Office late last year and was notified his credit card number was one of the 1,200 that was found on the laptop of two gas thieves.

The call was to verify his credit card number.

So Erik started asking questions and learned the GSA-OIG had cracked the case. Erik reached out to Rudolph and Martinez, both of whom met him at the RaceTrac in South Orlando on Tradeport Drive where they said the fraudsters attempted to use the stolen credit cards.

Agent Martinez said a GSA credit card was also “skimmed” – stolen by an electronic reader illegally installed inside the credit card terminal at a pump.

It was a GSA card provided to Amtrak. Amtrak notified the GSA-OIG of the theft, and Martinez and Rudolph began to investigate.

They say the crime is often the same: a crook places a skimming device inside a pump, the skimmer transmits the stolen credit card data via Bluetooth to a thief in a nearby car, the data is saved on a laptop, the stolen credit card numbers are then encoded into the magnetic strip of a gift card, and then that gift card is swiped at a gas pump to steal gas.

Watch surveillance video below of a suspected card skimmer case.

The agents said gasoline is often the prize because gas pumps don’t require in-person verification of a credit card.

The crooks often install “bladders” — additional tanks — concealed inside large vehicles in order to steal large quantities of gasoline without drawing attention to themselves.

The gas, purchased with stolen credit card numbers, is then sold at a discount.

Agent Rudolph said that after he was notified of the fraudulent use of the GSA credit card number stolen from Amtrak, assisted by the Amtrak Office of Inspector General and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Office of Law Enforcement, he obtained surveillance video from the gas station where the card was used.

He then identified the thieves and traced them to an Orlando address.

“We followed two subjects with pick-up trucks equipped with external fuel tanks,” Agent Rudolph said. “We made contact with both of those subjects in the back of the RaceTrac. What that revealed was that both subjects were in possession of counterfeit credit cards.”

Rudolph said they discovered some 1,200 stolen credit card numbers on the laptop belonging to the thieves. 

“It’s going on everywhere throughout Florida,” Rudolph said “We’re in the midst of a credit card fraud epidemic.”

Agent Martinez explained he was first brought to Florida in 2003 as a GSA-OIG investigator for credit card skimming and gas theft and eventually established a GSA-OIG office in South Florida because the problem only worsened.

Martinez called Florida the “epi-center” of credit card skimming and gas theft.

The agents said they forward larger cases to the U.S. Department of Justice for prosecution and smaller cases, like this one, to the State Attorney as often as possible but the skimming will continue until shoppers do more to protect their credit card numbers. 

Agent Martinez offered several pro-tips:

• Wiggle the credit card reader at the pump. If it’s loose, he doesn’t use it.

• Use pumps within direct line-of-sight of the convenience store. Chances are lower that thieves will target the pumps in front of the store. Usually, crooks tamper with pumps on the ends so they’re less likely to be spotted.

• Always go inside to pay! Martinez recommends using cash, which he understands is not convenient, but if you choose to use a card always use a credit card rather than a debit card because you have more recourse (credit card companies often do not hold consumers responsible for a stolen credit card). And Martinez suggests at least walking inside to the store to pay with your credit card. It’s far less likely a cash register in the store has been tampered with.

The two thieves, Ernesto Ruiz and Erik Muinos Cardenas, were convicted of credit card fraud charges and sentenced to time-served, according to Agent Martinez.

But they are now on record, Martinez said.