Man accused of using gift card scheme to sell fuel to truckers at half price in exchange for cash

A Baltimore resident is facing multiple federal charges in connection with an alleged years-long scheme to steal financial information from others in order to sell fuel to truck drivers at a deep discount in exchange for cash.

Leroy Holmes, 61, is facing federal charges of bank fraud, identity theft, and access device fraud after he was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 10, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office District of Maryland.

According to the indictment, from October 2019 to March 2022, Holmes “allegedly defrauded financial institutions by creating and using credit and debit card information encoded on gift cards to make fraudulent purchases without authority from cardholders or financial institutions.  Holmes allegedly re-encoded gift cards to charge as credit and debit cards using the real banking information of victims at gas stations where he sold gas to truck drivers for half price.”

Authorities say that Holmes used, created, or possessed at least 594 counterfeit credit and debit cards, resulting in a loss of at least $170,000. Some of the cards contained unemployment insurance benefits provided to victims from the state of California and were used without each victim’s knowledge or permission.

Holmes faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for bank fraud, 15 years in federal prison for access device fraud, and two years in federal prison consecutive to any other sentence imposed for aggravated identity theft if he is convicted.

Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the Secret Service, the Department of Labor-OIG, the Baltimore County Police Department, and the Anne Arundel County Police Department all contributed to the investigation.