Herman Ndonue Lucien Guy Etobil
Two Washington, D.C. nursing home employees who detectives suspect were about to go on a Nashville area buying binge with fraudulent Visa and American Express gift cards are in the Metro Jail. Lucien Guy Etobil, 50, of Silver Spring, Maryland, and Herman Ndonue, 26, of Hyattsville, Maryland, were stopped by Specialized Investigations Division Interdiction Officer Thomas Spence late Thursday afternoon on I-40 near Bellevue for following the vehicle in front of them too closely.
While investigating the rental car the two were in, Officer Spence came upon more than 50 Visa and American Express gift cards, most of them stashed inside cigarette packages for concealment. Both men denied knowledge of the cards. Follow up investigation by the Fraud Unit revealed the gift cards were not of the prepaid variety as they appeared. Instead, the cards’ magnetic strips had been encoded with credit card information, meaning that they could be used repeatedly until the owners of the credit cards determined that their numbers were being fraudulently used and canceled them.
A search of the Sidco Drive motel room where Etobil and Ndonue were staying revealed four additional gift cards. Both men are presently charged with one count each of criminal simulation. They are being held in lieu of $10,000 bond. Additional charges are expected to be placed against them as detectives work with financial institutions to identify the true owners of the credit card numbers loaded onto the gift cards.
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