“Show me,” said Tanner standing over her.
Ben went back to the rest of the women, all staring at Kiel, afraid to even move.
“Who do you work for?” he asked.
“It’s a private equity.We don’t know their name.We’re paid in cash every week and we get a new list of clients we’re supposed to upload the ads to.”
“Without their knowledge?” asked Ben.
“I-I don’t know,” said one of the women.“We just do what we’re told.”
“Take us to your office,” said Wyatt.The women stared up at the massive man in front of them.“That wasn’t a request.”
The women stood and started to head toward the door.Suddenly Hiro stood in front of them, holding out his hand.
“Give me your cell phones.”
“God, you guys are cops aren’t you?” said one of the women.Hiro just laughed, shaking his head as he took their phones.
“You’re going to wish I was a cop when we’re done.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“The program they were using was similar to the one being used in Baltimore,” said Tanner.“We think they were working for the same person, or persons, as the men.This operation is much bigger than we thought.”
“Did you have them arrested?” asked Eric.
“No.Two of them were single moms and we believed them when they said they didn’t know all the details.Mostly because they couldn’t answer all our questions.I know that’s sexist.I never asked if any of the guys were single dads.But I just couldn’t do it,” said Ben.
“It’s okay.Are we worried about them calling their boss?” asked Luke.
“Nope.We wiped their phones and gave them new ones.They never called her, she called them from a burner phone, so they don’t have access to her phone number.The number that called in is a throw-away phone every damn time,” said Tanner.
“So, it was a ‘she’ for sure.”
“Definitely a she.It’s one of the reasons the girls were so excited to work in this environment.It was a woman and ninety percent of what they were working on was shopping sites.They were allowed to buy whatever they wanted on the company card.”
“Smart woman,” frowned Cam.“She was appealing to the women so that they would ignore what was actually happening.”
“According to Tanner, when you click on the pop-ups, it allowed them to have more time to gather data from the computer.While the user was busy trying to close them, they were busy pulling every last thing from their laptop or desktop.”
“Fuck me,” mumbled Eric.
“After Tanner traced some of the scammed users, they found one woman who spent roughly three-grand on the site, then was scammed for another twenty-three thousand.Her husband had a black card so the credit card company didn’t question the large expense.
“A few weeks later, nearly two-hundred thousand in charges were found on the card that the owners didn’t authorize.They don’t screw with gaming, it’s all shopping but we think it’s the same woman running the operation.
“The other thing is that this woman is really smart.She doesn’t use the card in person, she doesn’t spend on it and send things to a personal address.She buys items that are virtual.Subscriptions, software to download, airline gift cards, hotel gift cards, and buys the insurance to return for cash.The bank accounts where the refunds go are all over the country,” said AJ.
“Okay.We need to find that damn woman,” said Luke.
“We’ll be going to Baltimore in the morning and going back to the Internet Crime offices.”
“Sounds like a plan, brothers.Keep us informed of what’s happening.Don’t ask me why but I feel like all this shopping, gaming bullshit is leading us down a hole we don’t need to go down.”
“Eric, it’s for real brother,” said Tanner.
“I don’t doubt that at all but I feel as though someone is sending up flares to distract us from what’s really happening.They’re making money from it, they’re getting things they need from it, but it’s not the ultimate goal.I just don’t know what the real goal is yet,” he frowned.
