A career fraud artist has been sentenced to spend more than two years in jail.
On Feb. 7, in Surrey Provincial Court, Jennifer Moropito was sentenced to 25 months plus the three months she had already been in custody for committing 18 counts of fraud and ID theft crimes between August and October of last year.
The 37-year-old pleaded guilty to 12 counts of fraud, three counts of unauthorized use of credit card data, identity theft, personation with intent to gain advantage and one count of possession of drugs.
Detective work led to the arrest of Moropito, said Langley RCMP Sgt. Desmond Kiehlbauch of the street enforcement unit.
The Langley woman had been to numerous large and small retailers throughout the Langleys, using fraudulent credit cards, said Kiehlbauch, who worked the case.
She purchased everything from furniture and pet food to $10,000 worth of lumber from a local lumber yard, he said.
“She would use the credit card machine and manage to distract the employee while she punched in a number. The transaction would go through and then a month later, the business would find out it was a fraudulent sale,” said Kiehlbauch.
After a number of businesses began filing police reports about the frauds, Moropito popped up as a suspect on various files, he said.
Police carried out surveillance on her and watched as she twice committed fraud. This allowed them to get a search warrant for her Willoughby apartment, which revealed numerous identification documents that didn’t belong to her, said Kiehlbauch.
From there, the street enforcement unit put together a detailed package for Crown counsel, he said.
Police are happy with the unusually long sentence.
“It’s nice to know she will be locked away for a while and unable to continue to commit these crimes in Langley,” Kiehlbauch noted.
Moropito was also due in Port Coquitlam Provincial Court Feb. 15 to face charges of fraud.
Criminal charges for Moropito date back to the early 2000s. In 2006, she was sentenced to 60 days in jail for possession of a stolen credit card.
monique@langleytimes.com
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