Huntington Beach man sought in connection with credit card fraud ring

Authorities are looking for a Huntington Beach man who is suspected of being part of a fraud ring that used credit card information stolen from customers at restaurants to create counterfeit cards.

Lloyd Luis Leyh, 43, who is wanted by police and FBI agents, is facing a charge of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with the credit card skimming operation, which authorities suspect began in Huntington Beach.

Leyh is one of 13 people charged in a 27-count federal indictment filed April 18.

The FBI announced Tuesday that 12 people were in custody. That followed a series of early-morning raids in La Mirada, Hesperia, Whittier and Norwalk in connection with the case. The sweep targeted members of the La Mirada Punks gang and the Norwalk-based gang Carmelas.

One of those arrested, Russell Jay “Big Dog” Ogden, 43, of La Mirada, is suspected of being the operation’s mastermind, federal authorities said.

The indictment alleges that the defendants devised and executed a credit card skimming scheme that operated between October 2013 and July 2015 in Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

Skimmers — small devices that can scan and store data from the magnetic strips on the back of debit and credit cards — allegedly were installed in area restaurants at the behest of the group’s ringleaders, according to the indictment.

It isn’t clear which restaurants had the skimming devices.

Authorities allege that the defendants would encode data from the skimming devices onto gift cards that were used to purchase items at businesses such as Apple, Nordstrom, Toys“R”Us, Jack’s Surfboards, Louis Vuitton, Bloomingdale’s and Rip Curl.

The items were kept, resold or returned for credit, according to the indictment.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Veronica Rocha and KTLA contributed to this report.

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UPDATES:

10:25 a.m. May 24: This article was updated to bring the number of arrests to 12 and provide additional details.

This article was originally posted at 6:30 p.m. May 23.