Fugitive arrested in $200M fraud scam from Valley Stream

A Valley Stream man was arrested on Tuesday for his role in one of the largest credit card fraud schemes ever, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release.

Habib Chaudhry, 49, was charged by complaint in February 2013 and then by indictment in September 2013. He was arrested in Newark, N.J., and has been a fugitive for nearly four years.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court, Chaudhry was indicted as part of a conspiracy to fabricate more than 7,000 false identities to obtain tens of thousands of credit cards. Since then, 19 people have pleaded guilty in connection with the scheme.

The scheme allegedly involved a three-step process in which the perpetrators would create false identities, identification documents and a credit profiles with the major credit bureaus. They would inflate the credit of the false identity by providing fabricated information about that identity’s creditworthiness, and then borrow or spend as much as they could. The scheme caused more than $200 million in confirmed losses to businesses and financial institutions.

The scope of the criminal fraud enterprise required the conspirators to construct an elaborate network of false identities. Across the country, the conspirators maintained more than 1,800 “drop addresses,” including houses, apartments and post office boxes, which they used as the mailing addresses for the false identities.