15 Years in Prison|for Credit Card Thief

LOS ANGELES (CN) – A credit card and identity thief was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison, a year after officials confiscated more than 100,000 counterfeit credit cards he bought from China or made in his L.A.-area factory.     Jose Rolando Renderos, 39, of El Salvador and Montebello, was arrested on Feb. 1, 2013 after a high-speed chase through the San Gabriel Valley. He had just picked up a box of more than 3,000 Chinese-made counterfeit credit cards, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement Tuesday.     “All told, authorities seized more than 100,000 counterfeit credit cards and numbers in packages imported from China and at a credit card manufacturing plant that Renderos had operated in Montebello,” the U.S. attorney said.     Renderos was convicted in October 2013 in a jury trial. He cost his victims more than $100,000, the U.S. attorney said.     The prosecutor’s office added: “The ill-gotten gains paid for cosmetic surgery for himself and his girlfriend, VIP tickets to Lakers and Clippers games, and designer handbags and shoes.”     Renderos stole credit card numbers by installing skimmers inside gas station pumps across Southern California. Six other people were prosecuted, including his girlfriend, his 18-year-old son and his brother.     Renderos himself is a recidivist credit card thief, prosecutors said.