SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Yasir Mehmood, 45, of Sacramento, was sentenced on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez to four years and six months in prison for bank fraud and aggravated identity theft, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.
According to court documents, Mehmood was an information technology professional who was hired in 2011 to fix the computer systems at a Marin County-based eyeglass retailer. Months later, long after his business relationship with the retailer ended, and without authorization, he accessed hundreds of the retailer’s customer records, which included credit and debit card numbers, associated security codes, and personal identification information (names, telephone numbers, addresses and email addresses). Mehmood used these customer records to purchase products and gift cards and to process fraudulent merchant transactions with payments transferred to bank accounts controlled by him. Mehmood also fraudulently registered websites and made false online job postings to capture personal and financial information of online purchasers and job seekers.
San Francisco Division Inspector in Charge Rafael Nunez of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service stated, “We are working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our partners in law enforcement to arrest and prosecute those responsible for complex identity fraud schemes and to protect postal customer’s mail and personal information from theft.”
In 2013, while on pretrial release, Mehmood cut his ankle monitor and fled from authorities before being arrested by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department.
This case was the product of an investigation by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Spivak and Trial Attorney Manish Kumar from the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division prosecuted the case.