AVENTURA, Fla. — A New York City woman with an “extensive criminal history” is facing nine felony charges in South Florida after police said they interrupted her Aventura Mall luxury shopping spree that was funded by a victim’s stolen credit card information on Friday.
Aventura police said they were able to halt Yu Zheng, 43, of Flushing, Queens, while she was still at the mall after the victim got “multiple fraud alerts” from Bank of America about credit card transactions at around 6:30 p.m., prompting her daughter to call police.
According to an arrest report, the first transaction that raised eyebrows was for $636 at Ferragamo.
Police said they went to the store and found out that a woman, later identified as Zheng, bought a men’s belt after having “attempted to complete the purchase using multiple different credit cards stored on her cellular phone, repeatedly attempting payment until one of the digital cards was finally approved.”
The manager had described Zheng as “an Asian female wearing a blue baseball cap, white shirt and dark-colored jeans.”
Authorities said they then got word from the victim’s daughter about a $3,102 buy at Louis Vuitton.
The report notes that she had also been spotted in Bloomingdale’s making a nearly $4,000 purchase.
Police said they used the aforementioned description to track Zheng down while she was still in the mall. They said an officer spotted her “walking past Sephora at a hurried pace while keeping her head down and attempting to avoid eye contact” with police.
Authorities said officers detained Zheng and took two cellphones from her, later seizing nearly $1,800 in cash as well. They said surveillance footage later showed her meeting with an unknown man in a rental SUV.
“Surveillance footage showed Zheng placing the fraudulently obtained merchandise inside the vehicle before it departed the area,” the report states. “(The) investigation further revealed the vehicle entered the Aventura Mall property at approximately (9:30 a.m.) and remained on the property throughout the day before leaving immediately after Zheng was taken into custody” that evening.
According to the report, detectives determined that Zheng had initially made or tried to make multiple smaller transactions, one of which was for only $1.
“The progression from nominal transactions to luxury retail purchases is consistent with organized fraud operations testing compromised financial information before maximizing financial gain,” it states.
Police concluded that Zheng and her still-unidentified accomplice “demonstrated characteristics commonly associated with organized fraud rings, including the use of multiple digital payment methods, repeated testing of compromised accounts, rapid movement between luxury retailers and coordination with a waiting vehicle to quickly remove stolen property before detection.”
Officers arrested Zheng on charges including organized fraud, grand theft with others, forgery and identity theft.
A records check, they said, “revealed an extensive criminal history involving fraud-related offenses throughout multiple jurisdictions within the United States, including charges related to fraudulent use of credit cards, fraudulent use of personal identification information, prostitution, human trafficking, and federal criminal offenses.”
“Although Zheng had accumulated numerous felony-related arrests, she was not listed as a convicted felon in any state at the time of this investigation,” the report states.
As of Monday afternoon, she remained in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $20,150 bond.
Records show that if she posts bond, she’ll have to prove that the funds came from a legitimate source.
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