COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)–The Franklin County Grand Jury returned an indictment against a couple who allegedly used a stolen credit card to buy hundreds of cartons of cigarettes.
Prosecutor Ron O’Brien announced the indictment against 35-year-old Thierno Mamadou Barry (a.k.a Ahmed Barry, a.k.a Kevin Gonzalez) and 27-year-old Fatu Bangura,. They were indicted on counts including tampering with records, forgery, identity fraud, misuse of credit cards, receiving stolen property, and money laundering.
On July 27, 2015, Barry allegedly presented a fake driver’s license to police investigating an incident where he assaulted Bangura.
During the arrest, police say Barry dropped several gift cards and money orders, and had over $7,000 in cash on his person. The Columbus Police Department’s forgery section began investigating due to the fake license.
It is alleged that the gift cards were purchased with a stolen credit card that had over $54,000 in fraud charges on it. The charges occurred between July 15 and July 27, 2015. Barry and Bangura would allegedly use the gift cards purchased with the stolen credit card to purchase cigarettes.
O’Brien said Giant Eagle, Meijer, Family Dollar, Shell, Sunoco, Capital One, and American Express were all affected by the fraud transactions
Over 300 cartons of cigarettes were recovered from a U-Haul storage unit that Barry had rented in a fake name (Kevin Gonzalez – the same name on the fake license),
“There were four ID fraud victims and one forgery victim,” O’Brien said.