Crime & Safety

La Crescenta Caterer Targeted by Computer Hackers

A hacker from Russia or the Ukraine stole a La Crescenta woman's money and credit card information from the Pasadena Restaurant Depot, a national wholesaler where she purchased items for her catering business.

She found suspicious activity on her account when someone tried to charge her for purchases in Chicago and a location in Pennsylvania, the owner, who declined to be named, told Patch. When Well's Fargo called the victim, she found out someone was trying to steal money from her account. 

A letter arrived from Restaurant Depot, where she shops for food supplies in Pasadena. The company sent out a letter to customers to notify them about the investigation with Trustwave, a computer forensic firm.  

Find out what's happening in Montrose-La Crescentawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"If you shopped at Jetro/Restaurant Depot during the months of September, October, November, using a Credit Card and/or a Debit Card please read this letter, which was sent to all card users."

"It seems as though some guys either in Russia or the Ukraine hacked into our credit card system and they stole credit card numbers and then sold them," Richard Kirschner, President of Jetro Restaurant Depot told Patch. 

Find out what's happening in Montrose-La Crescentawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"What [these suspects] do is apparently is when they steal your credit card, they basically have a website that you can buy credit cards on," Kirschner said. "There’s a way of getting a credit card with someone else’s number."

About 90,000 customers had breached credit and debit cards, Kirschner said.

"Not all customers were victims in this case. I could not even tell you at this point how many there were. We sent this [letter] out to tell people to cancel their credit cards to make sure they weren’t victims in the future," Kirschner said. 

It is unknown if other La Crescenta business owners were targeted, Sheriff's Sgt. Harley of the told Patch. Harley could not immediately comment on the pending investigation, which is in processing. 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.

More from Montrose-La Crescenta