Trump Hotels probes potential credit card breach

Trisha Thadani | USA TODAY

Donald Trump's hotel organization confirmed Wednesday that it's in the midst of an investigation concerning "potential suspicious credit card activity."

Eric Trump, executive vice president of development and acquisitions of The Trump Organization, said in a statement to USA Today that the company has been alerted to the potential suspicious activity, and is investigating whether it involves any of its properties.

Trump, who is one of Donald Trump's sons, said the hotel organization is "committed to safeguarding all guests' personal information and will continue to do so vigilantly."

Cyber-security journalist Brian Krebs said on his blog krebsonsecurity.com Wednesday that several U.S.-based banks have traced a pattern of fraudulent debit and credit card charges to accounts that had been used at Trump hotels.

Krebs said sources in the financial industry have "little doubt" that Trump properties in several U.S. locations are dealing with a card breach — which appears to extend back to February 2015.

If this breach is confirmed, that would make the Trump Hotel Collection the latest victim in a string of credit card breaches involving hotel brands, restaurants and retail establishments.

Global hotel chain Mandarin Oriental confirmed in March that its hotels had been affected by a credit card breach earlier this year. The following month, hotel-franchising firm White Lodging said that its card-processing system at several of its locations were breached for the second time in 12 months.

The Trump Hotel Collection is a hotel management company owned by now-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. It manages luxury 5-star hotel properties in several major cities, including New York City, Chicago and Las Vegas.

This has been a bad week for real estate mogul Trump, who announced his run for presidency two weeks ago.

Following derogatory statements that Trump made regarding Mexican immigrants, NBC announced Monday that it would no longer air Trump's Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, and would remove him as host of the reality show The Apprentice.

Macy's also denounced Trump's derogatory comments, and said Wednesday that it would cut ties with Trump and drop his menswear collection from its stores.

Follow Trisha Thadani on Twitter: @TrishaThadani