Meet the 'Crafters' Who stole over $400,000.00 from Saks Fifth Ave!

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Crafting isn’t Easy: Five Individuals INDICTED After Alleged Identity Theft Scheme On Saks Fifth Ave Customers, RACKED Up $400K

A grand jury has indicted five people involved in an identity theft scheme, preying on Manhattan Saks Fifth Avenue customers. The alleged crooks stole personal information from Saks customers to buy hundreds of thousands worth of Chanel bags, Giuseppe Zanotti heels, Christian Louboutin, YSL and Givenchy labels to resale on black market or return to the store for cash.

There were five people allegedly involved. The accused ring leader (Tamara Williams, 36) did not work at Saks but provided the four sales associates (Kriss Rockson, 45, Jason Chance, 25, Alaia Harrison, 20, and Michael Knight-Williams, 44) with Social Security numbers and birthdays of more than 20 store credit card holders. With that information, the associates were able steal $400,000 worth of luxury goods from Saks’ Midtown flagship store.

 Pix 11 reports:

In some cases, sales associates gave the fraudulently-purchased merchandise to a group of “shoppers” that impersonated Saks account holders. The “shoppers” allegedly gave the stolen merchandise to Williams in various places in Queens, including hair salons and gas stations. The luxury items were then sold on the black market.

Shoppers were sometimes instructed to exchange stolen goods for gift cards, which were resold for a profit or used as payment to the shoppers.

Evidence shows no physical credit cards were ever presented. Credit card information was entered manually into the system by the sales associates who processed the transactions. There were also instances where customers were not at checkout during the purchases.

It's reported approximately 22 customers had their identities stolen, and the alleged thieves are facing over 60 counts in their indictment.

All five suspects have been charged with grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, identity theft, attempted identity theft, criminal possession of stolen property, and unlawful possession of personal identification information.

WATCH:

CHILE this is so 80’s, Or maybe you need to meet the GURLS and learn a tip or two! LOL!

FASHION BITS: Vuitton's Robbed & Dolce & Gabbana TAX CHEATS?

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IN TODAY'S FASHION NEWS:
Fashion Bandits? Louis Vuitton Bags Stolen From Paris Airport!

Hat Tip Karl Extravaganza! 

Europe has turned into the wild, wild west! It was only a little over a week ago when designer Marc Jacobs had his entire Spring 2012 collection stolen off of a train in London and now masked bandits have made off with close to a half million dollars in Louis Vuitton bags! According to Women’s Wear Daily, five masked bandits over powered four airport employees and a security guard at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport making off with about $ 400,760 worth of designer goods. The suspects are still on the loose and no other details are available at the moment.

Looks like there are going to be some angry, Speedy-less women in the world this holiday season. Something tells me that these two heists are definitely related, designers beware!

Also thieves beware as you may not know! All designer pieces have serial tags and can be easily identified! 


ALSO.....................................


Dolce and Gabbana Wanted for Tax Evasion

Design House Dolce and Gabbana are accused of dodging millions in taxes.
Dolce & Gabbana aren’t going to have a very relaxing holiday season. The duo had been accused last year of tax evasion for failing to declare more than $1.1 billion in sales, but in April, all charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence. Well, they better get their lawyers back on board, because that decision was overturned by a higher court in Italy and the case has been re-opened, WWD is reporting. 
The reasons the case was re-opened won’t be revealed until January after the holidays, but a legal source told WWD, “I assume the Supreme Court believes the judge’s decision to clear the designers was tainted by a legal flaw, a defective motivation or an error in the application of the law.”

Or perhaps it’s because the Italian government is a bunch of “thieves.” At least that was Stefano Gabbana’s opinion. The designer took to his Twitter account (always ill-advised when you’re facing legal action) to voice his anger at the Italian government: “Thieves!!! They don’t know what to do to get money out of us.” It turned into a political debate (Italians pay about 50% in taxes and many tweeters were annoyed at the designers for not allegedly paying their share.) It all culminated with Gabbana threatening to leave Italy. Some of the tweets were subsequently erased, but it appears the the design duo will continue to proclaim their innocence.