For almost a decade, credit card fraud has been on the rise. Global losses in 2016 totaled $24 billion, with half of the losses affecting cardholders in the United States. With nearly unlimited money to be made from scamming, some tech-savvy crooks have made stealing credit card data a full-time job.
VICE sat down with a con artist to get a behind-the-scenes peek at the murky business. He took us through the steps, showing us how he buys stolen accounts on the dark web, prints stolen numbers on blank cards, and uses stolen money to buy hundreds of dollars worth of items. He also described how he got into the game in the first place, as well as what it would take to pull him out.