Six individuals were arrested on Tuesday in Chapel Hill and charged with a combined 27 felonies and 16 misdemeanors.
Chapel Hill Police Lieutenant Josh Mecimore says the incident started with a traffic stop when an officer stopped a vehicle for traveling 59 miles per hour in a 35 mile per hour zone.
“During that traffic stop, [the officer] established that the person driving had used a fake ID, handed him an ID that was not real or at least not him,” Mecimore says. “The officer dug a little further into it and was able to establish that these guys appeared to have been manufacturing credit cards.
“Stealing people’s identities and manufacturing credit cards based on real credit card numbers, making credit cards that they could swipe.”
Mecimore says officers seized property from the vehicle that supported the suspicion of forgery.
“Some items were seized during this,” he says. “I know there was a machine used to emboss credit cards, a machine used to encode the magnetic strip on credit cards, along with some fake ID’s, [and] some amount of cash.”
One odd factor in the arrest report is that all of the suspects have Georgia addresses.
“We’ve run into some situations like this before where folks appear to be traveling up and down the east coast from town to town,” Mecimore says, “breaking into cars, stealing credit card numbers, using those to encode their own credit cards and then going and charging items.”
Mecimore says, while he doesn’t know the intentions of these suspects, an example he has seen in other cases is the suspects buying electronics on the forged credit cards and then returning the items for cash.
35-year-old Nathaniel Sims is facing five felonies and three misdemeanors and is being held on a $200,000 bond.
20-year-old Ja’Boris Devanta Howard has been charged with four felonies and three misdemeanors with a $300,000 bond.
28-year-old Derwayne Raynor is facing four felonies and three misdemeanors. He is being held on a $200,000 bond.
23-year-old Antahn Deon’ta Smith has been charged with four felonies and two misdemeanors and is being held on a $200,000 bond.
25-year-old Jasmine Ila Matthews is facing four felonies and two misdemeanors. She is being held on a $200,000 bond.
And 22-year-old Deshon Lamont Cooper has been charged with six felonies and three misdemeanors. He is facing a $250,000 bond
All of the suspects are due back in Orange County Court on October 19.
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