B.C. woman who was part of sophisticated credit fraud scheme escapes jail due to ‘fairly remarkable’ work to straighten up

 

 

BY KEITH FRASER, THE PROVINCE JULY 17, 2015

 

 

 

A B.C. woman who pleaded guilty in connection with a sophisticated scheme involving identity theft and possession of forged or falsified credit cards has received a conditional sentence.

A B.C. woman who pleaded guilty in connection with a sophisticated scheme involving identity theft and possession of forged or falsified credit cards has received a conditional sentence.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Johnston noted the Crown’s position on sentencing was that normally the accused, Amanda Jacqueline Chinn, might face a jail term for the offences. But due to her efforts to rehabilitate herself, a conditional sentence was appropriate.

Chinn, 24, entered guilty pleas along with her co-accused, Peter Daniel Bigcharles, who was sharing a home with her at the time the offences were committed.

Police executed a search warrant on the home in December 2012 and found hundreds of credit cards and debit cards, some of them genuine, some false, the judge said.

“Some of these cards appeared to be experimental in that they were the product of trial runs, attempts to create false documents. Some of them, for example, had a photograph of one or the other of Mr. Bigcharles or Ms. Chinn without a name filled in.”

Police also found two passports in the names of people other than the accused, both of the passports having been stolen.

Equipment that could be used to manufacture fraudulent credit and debit cards was also seized by police. A scanner with a card on the screen waiting to be scanned was found in addition to rolls of foil, a card printer, a magnetic stripe reader or writer and a laminating machine.

“In short, all of these discoveries would give every indication of a fairly sophisticated and fairly largescale operation designed to produce fraudulent or false identification documents or credit/debit cards,” said the judge.

Computers, some with data from compromised computer systems of third parties, were also discovered in addition to sophisticated forensic software.

Attempts were made by police to contact victims and several victim-impact statements were provided.

“The victim-impact statements appear to be more concerned with the manner in which some of the credit information or identity information was initially obtained, that is by theft, et cetera, and the feeling of violation of the victims, than the consequences,” said the judge.

One victim spent her own time and money dealing with the damage to her credit and was embarrassed when she applied for a mortgage and was challenged to prove who she really was, apparently due to the fraud committed against her.

The judge noted that Chinn — who had a good background and unremarkable childhood but fell in with “bad companions” that led her to a downward spiral of drug abuse — had since her release on bail done a “fairly remarkable job” of rehabilitating herself, upgrading her education, gaining skills and establishing a business.

Conditions of her sentence include a curfew, an order that she abstain from drugs and that she only handle credit and debit cards for the purposes of her business, which is only described in the ruling as being located in an “island community” in B.C.