Couple opened credit cards in patients’ names in $825,000 fraud scheme, feds say
A California couple opened credit cards in the names of health care patients and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a scheme that spanned six years, federal prosecutors said.
Miguel Leyva and Karina Arceo, both of Wasco, stole the identities of more than 125 people — particularly patients who saw providers in Kern County, where Arceo worked in an administrative health care role, according to prosecutors and court documents.
Arceo, also known as Karina Gutierrez, is accused of using her job to access patients’ files.
Leyva and Arceo charged more than $625,000 to thousands of credit cards they fraudulently opened between February 2016 and August 2022, an indictment says.
The couple bought home appliances, car accessories, designer clothes, concert and sports tickets in addition to paying for travel and other purchases, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California.
They often resold what they bought over social media in exchange for cash, according to the indictment.
Leyva and Arceo “reaped a windfall because they did not actually pay for the items,” prosecutors said in a Dec. 11 news release.
The couple also made payments on the credit cards with funds they stole from businesses in Kern County — allowing their scheme to continue undetected, according to the indictment.
Overall, banks lost more than $825,000 from their scheme, according to prosecutors.
On Dec. 11, Leyva pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft charges, the attorney’s office announced.
The same charges are currently pending against Arceo, prosecutors said.
McClatchy News contacted defense attorneys separately representing Leyva and Arceo for comment on Dec. 12 and didn’t receive immediate responses.
More on the fraud scheme
Before Leyva and Arceo applied for the credit cards, they used the victims’ stolen information to check their credit scores, according to the indictment.
They did so by creating online accounts for their victims with consumer credit reporting agencies, the indictment says.
In opening the fraudulent credit cards, the couple “provided billing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses over which they had control so that any communications related to the credit cards would go to them instead of the victims,” prosecutors said.
To pay off some of the credit card balances, Leyva and Arceo acquired stolen checks from businesses, including a trucking company, according to the indictment.
The couple used the companies’ banking information listed on these checks to access their accounts and make credit card payments with the companies’ money, the indictment says.
Leyva is facing up to 30 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the conspiracy charge he pleaded guilty to, according to prosecutors.
He’s also facing “a mandatory two years in prison, consecutive to other counts, for the identity theft charge,” prosecutors said.
He will be sentenced on April 1, 2024, according to the attorney’s office.
Wasco is about 140 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
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