Police have rounded up 38 people accused of running a credit card fraud ring out of Queens for almost a decade. Officials say hackers in China and Ukraine have been breaking into the databases of major U.S. department stores, and then sending the credit card information of thousands of shoppers to the ringleader, Kwok Chow, 36, a Flushing resident known as “Tony.”

The scam hit approximately 3,000 consumers and may have cost as much as $1 million. Tony allegedly used the data to churn out thousands of bogus cards, which were distributed to a team of shoppers who would buy high-end merchandise to be resold at a discount a web site, Easttrades.com. (There are still lots of sweet deals there, too!) Tony’s crew also used the data to generate fake driver’s licenses, enabling them to purchase plane tickets under false identities, something Queens D.A. Richard Brown finds “particularly disturbing.”

The arrests are the culmination of a 14-month probe, called House of Cards, which was initiated when a Flushing retailer spotted a fake driver’s license used by one of Chow's shoppers. After arresting that suspect, police began surveillance and tapped thousands of phone calls, which all had to be translated. And the overseas suspects are still at large; Commissioner Ray Kelly seemed none too optimistic about getting cooperation from the Chinese and Ukrainian governments: “So far we haven't had much success at all.”

Last year police nabbed 13 people who were stealing credit card information from restaurant diners; the city's Department of Consumer Affairs has a lot of useful tips on how to guard against identity theft.

Photo of Flushing shoppers by Harris Graber.