LA HABRA : Phone Scam Inquiry Leads to 3 Arrests

Two men and a woman suspected of selling stolen access numbers to telephone credit cards were being held Thursday after they were arrested at their La Habra home, police said.

The suspects were arrested Wednesday at their South Walnut Street residence after a three-month joint investigation by La Habra police and investigators from Pacific Bell and GTE California, La Habra Police Sgt. Mike Moore said Thursday.

Several lists containing more than 400 allegedly stolen telephone-access numbers were found at the home, where police arrested Rigoberto C. Armenta, 25; his brother, Marco, 28, and Norma C. Lucero, 23. They are expected to be arraigned today in North Orange County Municipal Court.

Police believe that the suspects were selling the telephone-access numbers, which allow users to charge telephone calls to their home numbers, Moore said. One sheet of paper recovered from the house apparently logged about $7,000 in sales of the numbers, he added.

Also seized at the house was about $5,200 in cash and a small amount of cocaine, Moore said.

The three are charged with criminal profiteering, illegally obtaining telephone service, possession of stolen, long-distance telephone credit cards and other counts, Moore said. All three were in jail Thursday afternoon with bail set at $10,000 each.

Rigoberto Armenta also was charged with possession of cocaine, Moore said.

Investigators believe that the suspects obtained the credit-card numbers by eavesdropping at airports and other locations where banks of public telephones are common, or by watching callers punch in their long-distance access numbers.

Pacific Bell loses millions of dollars a year statewide from stolen card numbers, spokeswoman Linda Bonniksen said.

Investigators won’t say what led them to suspect the three of fraudulently using the access numbers. “We don’t want to let them know how we find them,” Moore said.

But Bonniksen said Thursday that Marco Armenta apparently had been arrested in December, 1990, on similar charges that led Pacific Bell investigators back to him a few months ago.