Burnsville Police Arrest Habitual Credit-Card Fraud Suspect

A Minneapolis man convicted in October of credit-card fraud in Wright County has been charged with using a stolen credit card to try to buy expensive jewelry at two Burnsville jewelry stores a month later.

Fidel Mario Frometa Cabrales, 45, is charged with felony credit-card fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. The charge has a mandatory minimum penalty of a $6,000 fine.

Burnsville police were called to a Burnsville Center jewelry store just after 6:30 p.m. Nov. 21 after an employee reported a fraud in progress, according to the criminal complaint. Officers were given a physical description of the suspects and were told that mall security was trying to keep them in sight until police arrived.

Officers spoke to an employee at the jewelry store, who said Cabrales and another man came into the store and began to look at necklaces. She said Cabrales selected a necklace, then handed her a credit card, along with an Indiana identification card.

Employees became suspicious because of an earlier alert sent from another jewelry store warning that a man with an Indiana ID had used a phony credit card at several other stores to buy jewelry. Another employee came over to help the original employee with the transaction, and pretended to type in the credit-card numbers.

The employee typed in the wrong numbers so that the transaction wouldn’t go through, then returned the ID and credit card to Cabrales, who left the store. The jewelry store employees contacted mall security and asked them to keep an eye on the men until police arrived.

Police also spoke to an employee at another Burnsville jewelry store, who said two men came into the store on Nov. 17. One of them chose the largest, most expensive gold necklace in the store’s display case and handed the employee a credit card and an Indiana ID card for the $2,999 purchase. That store’s employees had received the same fraud alert, and they arranged the transaction so it wasn’t completed.

Employees of that store viewed photographs and identified Cabrales as the man who had tried to buy the expensive necklace.

Police tracked down Cabrales’ car outside Burnsville Center and spotted boxes from two newly purchased cell phones. Cabrales told the officers that he had bought the phones in Minneapolis, but police determined that the phones had been bought Nov. 17 in Apple Valley, with Cabrales using the same fraudulent credit card, according to the complaint.

While officers were speaking to Cabrales at the mall, they spotted a credit card in his shirt pocket. When an officer reached for it, Cabrales made a swatting motion at his pocket. The officer tried to grab his hands, but Cabrales pulled away.

Officers shouted at Cabrales that he was under arrest and ordered him to stop resisting, but he continued to fight, even after he was on the ground being handcuffed, according to the complaint.

Police found the credit card and the Indiana ID card on the ground near where they had struggled with him.

Cabrales was convicted in October of credit-card fraud in Wright County. He is scheduled to be sentenced on that conviction Feb. 6.

Cabrales has been released from custody in the Dakota County case on a $10,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled Feb. 12 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.