Crime & Safety

Sandy Springs Police Tie Taco Mac Server to Credit Card Fraud

Managers at Taco Mac, located at The Prado, noticed a server with a portable credit card device.

 

In his recent View From a Cop column, Sandy Springs Police Lt. Steve Rose alerted folks to how a credit card skimmer was used by a local restaurant employee to steal card information.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the suspect was a server at Taco Mac, located at The Prado. Aja Ananunziata and her husband Kareem Anthony Ananunziata were arrested on charges of financial identity fraud.

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In his Sandy Springs Patch column, Rose said:

The case came to light when a restaurant server, already suspected of using customer’s credit card numbers, was observed removing a small, portable skimmer, from her pocket and it’s believed that she was going to swipe a customer’s credit card on it.

Find out what's happening in Sandy Springswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The skimmer was later taken from the server and information later revealed that almost 30 credit card numbers had been illegally swiped, capturing their information.

Almost a week later, a search warrant was executed at an apartment and three large commercial-grade credit card readers and writers, along with dozens of blank “Green Dot” cards were recovered.

The credit card reader captures the information and the writer writes it to a blank gift card, in this case, the “Green Dot” cards.

Aja Ananunziata was arrested in January and released from jail on Feb. 7. Fulton County Sheriff's Department records show she was also arrested in August on charges of theft by receiving - motor vehicle, and theft by conversion.

Her husband, Kareem Anthony Ananunziata was arrested on charges of financial identity fraud, on Feb. 14, the AJC story said.

The couple resides in Sandy Springs.


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