The diners didn’t know it, but their credit cards were going to pay for more than their meals, prosecutors said.

Waiters in about 40 restaurants, in New York and elsewhere, quietly recorded customers’ credit card information and passed it on to people who used the information to make more than $3 million worth of worth of illegal purchases.

The credit card account information was stolen from customers who visited restaurants in Manhattan’s Chinatown and other parts of the New York metropolitan area, as well eateries in Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Some members of the group stole customers’ information; some made the counterfeit cards; others shopped for merchandise; and finally someone bought the goods for cash.

Read (AP via CNN)