Crime & Safety

Cops: Hackers Steal Credit Card Info from 15 Mahwah Shoppers, And Counting

Police are warning residents who recently purchased clothing from a local vendor to carefully review their credit card statements.

Residents in Mahwah who recently purchased custom apparel from a local printer might have had their credit card information compromised, Mahwah Police Chief Jim Batelli announced in a release Thursday afternoon.

Mahwah Detective Guido Businelli recently began an investigation when he noticed that a large number of fraudulent credit card use incident reports filed by township residents had a, “common denominator…The victims had all recently made a purchase from DC Sports,” Batelli said. 

DC, based in Upper Saddle River, makes specialty monogrammed sports clothing and accessories for many local teams.

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Police determined that a third-party vendor used by DC to process credit card transactions had been hacked, Batelli said.

According to cops, the hackers stole personal information from DC customers and used it to make fraudulent purchases online. The hackers shipped the items they bought all across the country, and made the purchases from different servers “in an…attempt to disguise the source of the original transaction,” Batelli said.

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As of Thursday, police said 15 Mahwah residents have been identified as victims of the hackers, but they say they expect that number to go up as more residents receive their credit card statements and notice unusual activity.

And, cops say, the implications of the hacking stretch far beyond the township. The third-party vendor also processed transactions for “many other businesses whose credit card information has also been hacked and compromised,” Batelli said.

During the investigation, DC Sports, which Batelli called a “well respected” business in and around Mahwah, “cooperated fully” and immediately suspended all credit card transactions through the vendor, police said. A call to the business Thursday was not answered, but police said DC is currently only accepting payments by check.

Police have not yet released information on who the hackers may be.

Police are asking all local residents who recently made purchases from DC Sports to carefully review their recent and upcoming credit card statements, and to report any suspicious activity to Bussinelli at 201-529-1000 ext. 218.


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