Police: Card skimmers caught red-handed at gas station pump

Two men have been caught in the act of trying to install a credit card reader inside a gas pump in Davie, police said.

An officer was on patrol in the 4400 block of S. University Drive at about 4 a.m. Wednesday when he spotted Raul Jose Hernandez Beltran, 30, of Hialeah, and Rafael Alejandro Mirabal Bonora, 28, of Miami, acting suspiciously at a Marathon gas station, according to arrest reports.

They parked a blue Infiniti at the southernmost pump farthest from the clerk’s view. Beltran wore a baseball cap and kept his head down to conceal his face. He went inside to shop and distract the clerk while Bonora used tools to open the gas pump’s cover and install the skimming device, the report said.

The officer parked his patrol car on a swale southeast of the gas station where he could watch Bonora working on the pump. When the officer eventually approached him, Bonora quickly closed the gas pump and started yelling at the officer in Spanish, investigators said.

Backup officers arrived and both Bonora and Beltran were arrested. The clerk was questioned and said he was unaware Bonora was tampering with the pump outside, police said.

Officers found the gas pump had a torn security seal from the state’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Investigators also discovered the credit card skimming device partially attached inside the pump, the report said.

Inside the Infiniti, which was registered to a woman in Hialeah, officers found a small electric drill used for opening the pump cover’s lock, several gift cards, a computer, several state security seals, and similar scanning said.

Bonora refused to answer police questions, but Beltran told them he was paid $100 to drive Bonora to several gas stations to install the skimmers and that the Marathon gas station had been their first stop, according to the investigative report.

Both were charged with using a scanning device to commit fraud.

Bonora is jailed without bond for violating probation on a prior charge of credit card fraud. Beltran was released Thursday on $1,000 bond, according to jail records.

Boynton Beach Police tweeted this week about recovering a skimmer that was numbered at a BP gas station, suggesting there could be others in the area. devices, investigators