CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
2001 – Shift
And then it was summer. Again.
At the beginning of June, Hopeton called a meeting to discuss some directives that had come down from Bolo. Biz and I arrived at the same time. I’d barely seen Biz over the last few months and had no idea why he’d been so scarce. Hopeton filled me in on the backstory- Lucci and Biz had found a new, and incredibly lucrative lo-fi scam: debit card skimming.
The way he explained it was that sometime this spring, around when I was in Panama, Biz had cracked open his EBT partner list and broken out the bodegas and fruit stands that he covered in the Coney Island, East New York, and Brownsville areas.
He approached each of the owners and asked them if they'd like to get in on a brand-new ATM scam that had just started to hit the streets. Anyone who said yes would be guaranteed an easy five-hundred to a thousand bucks a week, just to look the other way.
Once a store owner signed on, the following would happen:
Hacker genius Lucci and one of his little protégés (“I kid you not,” Hopeton laughed, “Lucci has lieutenants now!”) would install a skimmer overlay for the ATM card slot and a pinhole camera above the machine. They’d camouflage the camera behind a two-way mirror or a car service flyer and call it a day.
The skimmer recorded the card’s magnetic stripe data (account number, name).
The camera recorded the customer entering their 4-digit PIN.
Lucci downloaded the card data from the skimmer.
Biz matched up the PIN footage with the card data via timestamp alignment.
Biz cloned new cards using blank magnetic stripe cards and an encoder.
At that point, trusted runners (never the top guys) would:
Use the cloned cards at ATMs in different boroughs and Jersey to avoid pattern detection.
Pull out $100–$300 per card, depending on balance and withdrawal limits.
And then dump the cards afterward.
I stood there with my mouth open as Hopeton laid out each step. He saw my expression and laughed.
“And I’m not even telling you half the things these kids need to do to make sure this goes off properly,” Hopeton said. “I’m just giving you the highlights.”
“And is this sustainable?” I asked.
Hopeton shrugged and said, “Probably for a while. At least until the cops get onto it. But for now, those kids are bringing in up to 50k a week, before payroll, expenses and whatever they need to hand over to me and Bolo.”
I gave a low whistle.
Fuckin’ Biz- I always knew he’d wind up the richest kid in the crew. And Lucci finally organized his own direct reports.
Bolo might have been too old to latch onto modern hustles and Mundo may have been too lazy, but kids like Biz and Lucci were gonna keep this little crew afloat until Hopeton let us know our next move.
Our meeting was fairly uneventful. On the agenda were the following items:
Bolo had officially deaded his arms dealing business. We were to expect trickle down deals to come through over the next few months, but the objective was to sell off everything we currently had in stock and close up shop for good no later than December.
Biz and Lucci were to continue with the ATM scheme- “But don’t get greedy,” Hopeton admonished. “Or careless!” I added. Biz gave his usual bland nod.
I was to be on call as needed, but if I had to focus my attention on the GRE, or if Mundo needed me then that was all good, too. “I’m going to need some of your time in August, but we can discuss that later,” Hopeton told me.
And that was that. Meeting adjourned. Biz peaced out as quickly as possible. Hopeton asked me if I wanted to go check on a lot he’d heard might be on off-market sale.
“It’s in Gravesend,” he said, “so they’re probably not gonna be happy to sell to the likes of us. But it might be worth a look.”
“Fuck it, yeah,” I replied. “Ann alé!”
Hopeton looked at me sideways.
“What?” I asked. “That’s Kreyol for ‘let’s go.’”
