New York Daily News

Now, Lying George’s roommate says he ran a credit-card skimming ring

- BY DAVE GOLDINER

Controvers­ial Rep. George Santos is reportedly facing new allegation­s that he led a criminal credit card skimming ring in the latest damaging accusation to rock the freshman Long Island lawmaker.

An ex-con former roommate of Santos told authoritie­s that the freshman Republican was the mastermind of a 2017 identity theft scheme that they both took part in, Politico reported.

“Santos taught me how to skim card informatio­n and how to clone cards. He gave me all the materials and taught me how to put skimming devices and cameras on ATM machines,” Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha said in a sworn affidavit sent to investigat­ors this week.

Trelha, a Brazilian immigrant who once lived with Santos in Florida, was convicted and served several months in prison for stealing credit cards in Seattle. He was later deported.

He now says he was afraid of fingering Santos at the time for fear of retaliatio­n against relatives who were undocument­ed immigrants.

“I learned from him how to clone ATM and credit cards,” Trelha wrote in the statement. “He had a lot of material — parts, printers, blank ATM and credit cards to be painted and engraved with stolen account and personal informatio­n.”

Santos, who faces myriad probes into his checkered past and lies, proclaimed himself “innocent” to reporters on Capitol Hill Friday.

“Never did anything of criminal activity, and I have no mastermind event,” he said.

Santos was previously questioned about the Seattle scheme by federal investigat­ors but was not charged.

He testified on Trelha’s behalf at his arraignmen­t, falsely telling a judge under oath that he worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs.

In 2022, Santos portrayed himself as a trailblazi­ng conservati­ve gay immigrant on his way to winning a Democratic-leaning district that includes part of Long Island’s North Shore and a slice of Queens.

He later admitted to lying extensivel­y about going to college, working for big investment banks and claiming his grandparen­ts were Jews who fled the Holocaust.

He also faces criminal investigat­ions, which will likely focus on financial disclosure­s like his claim that he personally loaned his campaign $700,000 after supposedly making just $55,000 a year as recently as 2020.

Santos refuses to step down from office and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has tacitly stood by him even as fellow New York Republican­s mostly shun him.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States