An alleged member of the “coffee shop gang” that has defrauded B.C. Starbucks customers and others of more than $200,000 has been arrested and charged in the United States.

According to documents filed in Seattle district court, the scammers skimmed debit and credit cards at multiple Vancouver Starbucks locations, as well as the Dirty Apron deli, then made clone cards to withdraw the victims’ money south of the border.

The banks involved estimate the fraudsters made off with $209,210, and tried to take out an additional $385,659. The last successful withdrawal was less than one month ago.

On Feb. 12, U.S. authorities arrested Surrey, B.C. resident Dennis Nguyen at a Target parking lot in Washington State. He has since been charged with possession of bank card-making equipment.

Police say they expect to uncover more victims and make more arrests in connection with the scam.

The U.S. probe began in Dec. 2012, when an investigator at Boeing Employees Credit Union saw a group of people attempting to make suspicious withdrawals at a number of the company’s ATM machines in Seattle.

He eventually discovered the group had been making regular trips into the city to take cash out: twice in December, twice in January, and again on Feb. 2, according to court documents.

Police say many of the victims were customers of Vancity Credit Union, but the company told CTV News it could not shed light on why.

Vancity security director Jeffrey Bos did say the rise in chip and pin technology has reduced fraud in B.C.

“As a result of that fraudsters are now being forced to go to places where there isn’t chip, like the United States or like other foreign countries, to do their fraud-spend,” Bos said.

Starbucks issued a statement saying that employees at all Lower Mainland locations have been put on high alert.

“They’ve been instructed to report any irregularities, they are conducting daily checks of debit pin pad serial numbers, and… we have also installed security cables to debit pin pads to help prevent the devices from being compromised,” it said.

Starbucks added that all payment systems in Canadian stores will be converted to chip and pin by April.

The Dirty Apron told CTV News it noticed its debit machine had been swapped back in October and alerted police.

With a report from CTV British Columbia’s Scott Roberts