Men plead guilty to credit card fraud

Two men from California recently plead guilty to defrauding 200 people out of more than $90,000 as part of a credit card scam. The Martinez Gazette reports that David Karapetyan of Los Angeles and Zhirayr Zamanyan of Victorville were both sentenced after pleading guilty to multiple felonies, which included identity theft. The two men will serve time for a series of scams that began in November 2009 and affected people living in Benicia, Martinez, Livermore, Hayward, Oakland, San Mateo and Sacramento. Jerry Brown, who was recently elected governor of the state, was the state's attorney general when the case was prosecuted and said that putting these thieves away was important. "These thieves broke into gas station pumps and installed devices that collected customers' debit and credit card numbers and ATM PINs," Brown said in an interview with the source. "Later they used that stolen information to create fraudulent cards, make purchases and withdraw thousands of dollars from victims' accounts." Others from around the county have been convicted of fraud. The Times Herald-Record reports that Richard Ulloa of New York was found guilty on seven counts of mail fraud and faces a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars for his crimes.