Eleven people have been sentenced to federal prison for a parking-lot scam in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia that targeted credit union members in public places. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said on Sept. 25, 2026, that the longest term was three years and six months. According to the office’s announcement, the group got victims to hand over their phones through deceit and intimidation, then used them to reach bank accounts.
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What happened in the parking lots
The Justice Department says the scheme ran since at least January 2023. Fraudsters approached people in publicly accessible places, and the announcement’s headline calls it a credit union parking lot scam. Once a phone was in their hands, prosecutors say, the thieves opened the victim’s banking access and made unauthorized loan applications, disputed transactions, made transfers and took out withdrawals. They also collected the victims’ personal information…