Man charged with credit card “skimming” scheme fled to Texas now FREE TO GO under NM Bail Reform

“Almost a year after credit card ‘skimming’ devices installed in gas pumps around town were used to steal more than $10,000 from hundreds of Albuquerque residents, police have arrested one of the people who they said was responsible. Jose Dieguez-Pineda, 44, was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center Sunday from where he was being held in the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, according to online jail records. He is charged with forgery of a credit card, two counts of fraudulent signing of a credit card slip, two counts of identity theft and two counts of conspiracy. … In a court appearance Tuesday morning, background investigators said Dieguez-Pineda, who used a Spanish-language translator, had been in Albuquerque for six years and had been charged with two felonies in the past but had never been convicted. In April 2016, he had been charged with five counts of fraudulent signing of a credit card. That case is pending.”

(Elise Kaplan, “Man arrested in gas station ‘skimming’ scheme,” Albuquerque Journal, 1/2/2018)

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