Two men who racked up about $25,000 in jackpots on slot machines at Pechanga Resort & Casino near Temecula have been accused of fraud and grand theft, Riverside County court records show.

The men did not find a way to game the slot machines. Authorities say Hung D. Nguyen, 32, of Stanton, and Eric Hoang, 28, of Garden Grove, used stolen Visa debit card numbers to charge up the credits they used to play.

The men have also been charged in federal court, accused of stealing more than $400,000 from Chase Bank in a debit card scam that included visits to Las Vegas casinos, federal court records show.
 
Hoang's attorney in the federal case, Reuven L. Cohen, declined to comment.
Nguyen's attorney, Thomas H. Wolfsen, could not be reached.

Nguyen has been charged in Riverside County court with grand theft, fraud and burglary, but county prosecutors have yet to file charges against Hoang.
According to a Pechanga Resort and Casino investigator's statement in support of a search warrant, the men used more than two-dozen fraudulently obtained Chase Bank Visa debit card numbers to purchase around $25,000 in gift cards at the casino.

The gift credits were transferred to players cards in the name of Nguyen, Hoang and a woman who was at the casino with them, the statement says.
The debit card purchases were made in late February and Pechanga officials discovered in the ensuing weeks that they were fraudulent.

Investigator Herman Brown wrote that the Visa debit cards the men used had their names on them, but the original account information on the cards had apparently been deleted and re-encoded with the stolen debit card information.
Brown estimated the casino's losses at $50,000 between the jackpots and the fraudulent gift card purchases.

The search warrant documents don't say how much money the group had to spend in order to reap $25,000 in jackpots.
Pechanga officials declined to comment.

Riverside County officers arrested Nguyen in early March and he was scheduled for arraignment April 28.

But while Nguyen was out on bail, federal investigators arrested him in Orange County, Riverside County court records show.

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  Federal authorities also arrested Hoang.
  He was released last month on bond.
  Both men have pleaded not guilty.
  

Nguyen and Hoang were indicted in federal court last month on two-dozen counts of bank fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft and related charges, court records how. They are accused of stealing more than $400,000 from Chase Bank, the federal indictment says.

According to the indictment, the men scammed Chase into mailing them debit cards for accounts that did not belong to them, then used the card numbers to make fraudulent purchases and cash withdrawals.

The thefts took place in Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles counties and at Las Vegas casinos, court records show.
According to a U.S. postal inspector's st

atement in support of a search warrant that was filed in federal court, the scam began around June 2010 and involved logging onto the individual bank accounts online and phoning the bank to request resets of personal identification numbers.

Charges ranged from ATM withdrawals to money orders to purchases at Walmart and casinos, the inspector's statement says. Between Jan. 1 and Feb. 4, the inspector wrote, Hoang's players card records showed he gambled about $72,000 at Wynn Casino in Las Vegas.

Reach Sarah Burge at 951-375-3736 or sburge@PE.com