Rene Arviso Velasquez, 51, pleaded guilty on Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to three counts of access device fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. According to court documents, Velasquez admitted to stealing at least $47,000 from victims in the St. Louis area and other locations across the United States through what prosecutors described as “cross-country credit card theft expeditions.”
The plea agreement outlined several incidents involving Velasquez. On August 25, 2024, he stole a Lululemon belt bag from a woman at a restaurant in Cottleville, Missouri. Within an hour, he used her credit card to purchase five Visa gift cards and a pack of salted nuts totaling $1,031. Later that same day, he took another victim’s purse at a Brentwood restaurant and used the stolen credit card less than an hour later to buy $1,445 worth of gift cards. On November 3, 2024, Velasquez stole a wallet from a woman dining at a St. Peters restaurant and soon after bought five Visa gift cards and a Pepsi for $1,035 using her credit card.
Velasquez has also gone by the names Miguel Antonio Carrasco-Gomez and Henry Diaz. He was living in Tarzana, California but is identified as a Chilean national.
He is scheduled for sentencing on February 17, 2026. The charges of access device fraud carry penalties of up to ten years in prison and fines up to $250,000 per count or both imprisonment and fines. The aggravated identity theft charge carries an additional mandatory two-year sentence that must be served consecutively.
The case was investigated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division. Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman is prosecuting.
