Page 6 - ARUBA TODAY

A6 U.S. NEWS
Thursday 8 February 2018

36 are indicted in Police:
cybercrime ring Man put dismembered wife in suitcase, set it ablaze

that stole $530M
By MICHAEL BALSAMO
By MICHAEL BALSAMO LOS ANGELES (AP) — Inves-
Associated Press tigators believe a home-
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Thirty- less man killed his wife in
six people were indicted an abandoned restaurant,
in connection with an in- chopped up her body,
ternational identity theft stuffed it into a suitcase
ring known as a "one-stop and then calmly rode with
shop for cybercriminals" it aboard a train before he
that sold stolen credit card burned her remains in a
information on the dark parking lot, Los Angeles po-
web, leading to losses of lice said Tuesday.
more than $530 million, U.S. After Valentino Gutierrez
prosecutors said Wednes- killed his wife last week in
day. a shuttered restaurant in
The Infraud Organization Pasadena, he dismem-
— founded in 2010 and bered her body, stuffed
operated under the slo- her remains into a large
gan "In Fraud We Trust" — suitcase and boarded a
used an online forum to light-rail train at a nearby
buy and sell stolen credit station, Deputy Chief Justin
card and bank account Eisenberg said. Gutierrez,
numbers, Social Security 56, who was charged Thurs-
numbers and other per- day with murder and arson,
sonal information, the U.S. didn't draw any suspicion Justin Eisenberg, the chief of detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department, right, speaks at a
Justice Department said. on the train and hopped news conference in Los Angeles at police headquarters alongside Capt. William Hays, Tuesday,
Feb. 6, 2018. A California man has been charged with murder and arson after killing his victim,
Investigators believe the aboard his bicycle after he dismembering the body and carrying it aboard a train in a suitcase before burning the remains.
group's nearly 11,000 mem- exited the train. With the (AP Photo/Mike Balsamo)
bers targeted more than suitcase in tow, he peddled
4.3 million credit cards, from a train station to the burned remains. But po- berg said at a news confer- with a similar suitcase riding
debit cards and bank ac- parking lot of a Home De- lice believe the victim was ence Tuesday announcing a light-rail train, which led
counts worldwide, Deputy pot in Los Angeles, where Gutierrez's wife, 31-year-old Gutierrez's arrest. Detec- investigators to Pasadena.
Assistant Attorney General he set the suitcase ablaze. Tiana Alfred, who has been tives were able to identify "To dismember an individ-
David Rybicki said. Detectives still haven't iden- reported missing. The killing Gutierrez as a suspect after ual like that is pretty gro-
Most of the members of In- tified a motive in the case was a "particularly disturb- they reviewed surveillance tesque," Hays said. "It takes
fraud never met in person and coroner's officials have ing homicide because of video from the transit sys- a lot of effort and determi-
and only knew one an- been unable to identify the its sheer brutality," Eisen- tem that showed a man nation by an individual.q
other through their online
usernames, he said. The
organization's goal was to Jury: Prison worker turned killer into sex slave
become the premier site
to purchase retail items SAN QUENTIN, Calif. (AP) — murder and robbery, sued damages and $50,000 in and Pulido retaliated, ac-
with stolen or counterfeit A U.S. jury awarded $65,000 vocational instructor Silvia punitive damages, the San cusing him of disciplinary
credit card information, to a convicted murderer Pulido because he said she Francisco Chronicle report- violations that landed him
prosecutors said. in California's San Quentin coerced him into trading ed Wednesday. Cordoba, in solitary confinement for
The group's hierarchy in- State Prison after finding sex acts after promising to 57, said the abuse began nine months, the lawsuit
cluded administrators who a female prison instruc- get him a lawyer to help him in 2010 when he became said. Cordoba sued Pulido
managed the operation tor turned him into a "sex get out of prison. After a six- a clerk for Pulido, who in 2012, saying the experi-
and membership, forum slave." day trial last month in U.S. taught janitorial skills at San ence left him needing psy-
moderators and vendors William Cordoba, who is District Court in Oakland, Quentin. After months of chiatric care and alleging
who sold illicit products and serving a life sentence for jurors awarded Cordoba being her "sex slave," Cor- cruel and unusual punish-
services to members.q a 1981 second-degree $15,414 in compensatory doba tried to break it off ment. q