Controversial Rep. George Santos is reportedly facing new allegations that he led a criminal credit card theft ring in the latest damaging indictment to rock the rookie Long Island lawmaker.
An ex-convict and former roommate of Santos told authorities that the rookie Republican was the mastermind of a 2017 identity theft scheme in which both participated, reported Politico.
“Santos taught me how to browse the information on the cards and how to clone cards. He gave me all the materials and taught me to put skimming and cameras in ATMs, “said Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha in a sworn declaration sent to researchers this week.
Trelha, a Brazilian immigrant who once lived with Santos in Florida, was convicted and spent several months in prison for stealing credit cards in Seattle. She was later deported.
Now he says he was afraid to charge Santos at the time for fear of reprisals against family members who were undocumented immigrants.
“I learned from him how to clone ATMs and credit cards,” Trelha wrote in the statement. “He had a lot of material: parts, printers, ATMs and blank credit cards to paint and engrave with personal and stolen account information.”
Santos, who faces countless investigations into his checkered past and his lies, was previously questioned by federal investigators about the Seattle plan but was not charged.
He testified on behalf of Trelha at his appearance, falsely tell a judge under oath that he worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
In 2022, Santos cast himself as a pioneering conservative gay immigrant on his way to winning a Democratic-leaning district on Long Island’s north shore and a portion of Queens.
He later admitted to lying at length about going to college, working for large investment banks, and that his grandparents were Jews who fled the Holocaust.
He also faces criminal investigations, which will likely center on financial disclosures like his claim that he personally loaned his campaign $700,000 after reportedly earning just $55,000 a year in 2020.
Santos stubbornly refuses to resign and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has tacitly supported him, even as his fellow New York Republicans largely shun him.