Two people have been arrested in Alabama for their alleged role in an illegal debit card scheme that bilked thousands of dollars from residents from four states.

Reiner Perez Rives, age 34 and Eunises Llorca Meneses, age 30, both of the Orlando, Florida, were apprehended by deputies of the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office and investigators of the Attorney General’s Office. Rives and Meneses face charges from the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Office for trafficking in stolen identities, identity theft and an illegally obtained or an illegally possessed credit card. Rives also awaits 15 counts of identity theft to be served by the Ozark Police Department. Additional charges may be filed in both jurisdictions and in surrounding states pending further review of recovered evidence and the identification of other victims.

The case follows a trail from Virginia to Nashville and then along Interstate 65 through Alabama and parts of Interstate 10.

The closest debit card fraud incident in the area was in Falkville. Cases were also noted in Athens, Huntsville and Madison in north Alabama, Attorney General Luther Strange reported.

The case focuses on what law enforcement officials call skimming. The culprits are alleged to have added a device on gas pumps that reads an individual’s information off the strip on a debit card once the PIN is entered. The device can later be collected and information retrieved and transferred to a credit card.

“The suspects had nearly 400 stolen gift cards, meaning gift cards for VISA or Master Card, that you can purchase at a store. We believe these cards were stolen from various cards and that they were transferring information from the debit cards so they could use them, which would potentially clean out someone’s bank account,” said Mike Lewis, a spokesperson for the attorney general.

Lewis said the credit cards can be used without checking identification and that thousands of dollars could be lost.

“We don’t know if it’s the tip of the iceberg or if we caught them on the front end. We do know that federal agents want the suspects when we are finished with our work,” Lewis said.

Cullman County Sheriff Matt Gentry said skimming devices are difficult to detect and that a store owner or manager of a convenience store may not know it is there.

“The best thing you can do when you pull up to an island of gas pumps is to examine the slot where you will run your debit card, and then compare it to the other slots of the gas pumps around you. If it appears different, don’t use and report it to the store owner, who should notify law enforcement,” Gentry said.

Gentry said criminals using skimmers will often come back after hours or pretend to be pumping gas and remove the device and retrieve the information.