The NYPD foiled a sophisticated, multistate credit-card-skimming ring when the alleged thieves tried to go on a shopping spree.
Garegin Spartalyn, 39, and Aram Martirosian, 34, both from Las Vegas, along with California cohorts Hayk Dzhandzhapanyan, 40, and Davit Kudugulyan, 42, face hundreds of counts of theft, fraud and possession of forged instruments.
The alleged scammers first targeted a Raceway Gas station in Mesquite, Texas, by using a skimmer to access customers’ Chase credit-card accounts at the pumps, sources said.
“A customer, she said they copied the outside of the card and somebody took it and spent money,” a Raceway attendant told The Post.
On Wednesday, the NYPD’s Grand Larceny Task Force was tipped off that the four suspects were in town to shop using gift cards and money orders, the sources said.
Undercover cops allegedly caught two of them withdrawing thousands of dollars from two city ATMs.
A day later, authorities brought down the rest of the ring who were holed up at the Hotel Pennsylvania, the sources said.
Inside their suite, cops allegedly confiscated almost $200,000 in money orders, $84,000 in cash and 200 phony credit cards.
A magnetic-strip device was also recovered.
The bandits attached a skimmer with a pinhole-size camera to the ATM to copy the cards and record users punching in their PIN codes, said task-force member Sgt. Louis Devirgilio.
Cops say they lay in wait and then arrested two of the men once they were caught in the act.
“In situations like these, they watch the transaction and the perpetrator has no idea that they’re cops,” said arresting Officer Christopher Kalyviotis.
Kudugulyan was busted in a similar ring in 2009 in Las Vegas, the sources said.
The four men appeared in court yesterday to face 380 counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument, as well as one count each of grand larceny and identity theft, among other charges.
Additional reporting by Sabrina Ford