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Friday, March 29, 2024
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Gainesville Police arrested a man Thursday afternoon for having 20 fraudulent credit cards.

Jamaan Howard, a 36-year-old resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, was a passenger in the car a GPD officer stopped at about 5 p.m. The officer conducted the traffic stop outside of Gainesville at the 374-southbound mile marker of Interstate 75, according to the arrest report.

The officer approached the van from the passenger side and spoke to the driver through the front window to tell him why they were stopped. The car allegedly had an illegal window tint, and the tag was improperly displayed.

Howard

While standing at the window, the officer reportedly smelled burnt marijuana. He had all of the occupants, including Howard, get out of the car after the driver told him the people in the backseat were smoking.

The officer searched Howard and allegedly found a total of 17 credit cards inside of Howard’s front pants pocket and wallet. Sixteen of the cards didn’t have a number printed or stamped onto them. They also didn’t have a person’s name or an expiration date.

According to the arrest report, only one legitimate card, which did belong to Howard, had a card number, an expiration date and his name.

While searching the car, the officer also found a black laptop bag with a computer, a re-encoder and four more cards. The additional cards reportedly didn’t have a name, number or expiration date either.

A burnt marijuana cigarette was also allegedly found in the backseat where Howard was sitting.

According to the arrest report, people who commit this type of crime typically take a card and wipe all of the information off the face of it. They then stamp or print their own name and new information to make it easier to use the fraudulent cards at a business.

Using law enforcement resources, the officer read the information on the magnetic stripes of the cards and confirmed they were fraudulent. Some of the card information reportedly indicated a Visa account when the face of the card said Mastercard.

The officer found a total of 20 fraudulent credit cards, and GPD charged Howard for trafficking in counterfeit credit cards and being in possession of a re-encoder to defraud, according to the report.

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Howard remains in Alachua County Jail in lieu of a $200,000 bail.

Follow Jessica Curbelo on Twitter @jesscurbelo and contact her at jcurbelo@alligator.org. 

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