NEWARK, N.J. – A Middlesex County, New Jersey, gas station manager today admitted making approximately $78,000 in fraudulent fuel charges using account information belonging to more than 17 gas station customers, including Amtrak, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.
Umer Hassan Mir, 40, of South Amboy, New Jersey, pleaded guilty by videoconference before U.S. District Judge Claire C. Cecchi to an information charging him with knowingly and with intent to defraud effecting transactions with one or more access devices issued to other persons having a value over $1,000, over a one-year period of time.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
From February 2018 through August 2021, while working at a Delta gas station in Metuchen, New Jersey, Mir caused numerous fraudulent fuel charges to be entered on fuel credit cards leased by the General Services Administration (GSA) and assigned to Amtrak vehicles. Mir would manually enter account information regarding fuel credit cards that he personally collected and saved during legitimate fuel transactions electronically into the point-of-sale terminal at the Delta gas station. Following false fuel transactions, Mir withdrew cash in the amount of the fraudulent transaction from the gas station’s cash register. According to statements in court, Mir used this cash for personal expenses and to pay another gas station employee for working extra hours on Mir’s behalf.
The access fraud charge carries a maximum potential penalty of 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 13, 2022.
U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of the Amtrak, Office of Inspector General, Eastern Region, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Michael J. Waters; the GSA Office of Inspector General, Northeast Field Investigations Division, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Joseph Dattoria; and postal inspectors with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Philadelphia Division, under the direction of Postal Inspector in Charge Damon Wood, with the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea. He also thanked the Metuchen Police Department, acting under the direction of Chief of Police Arthur Flaherty for its assistance.
The government is represented by Senior Trial Counsel Leslie Faye Schwartz of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Special Prosecutions Division.