Two people are facing charges after police found them with more than a dozen counterfeit American Express gift cards re-encoded with stolen credit card information.
According to Wallingford police, 26-year-old Michael Smith, Jr. and 24-year-old Cheyenne Sharpe, both of New York, raised suspicions when they tried to use one of the cards at a Cumberland Farms gas station on North Colony Road in Wallingford earlier this month.
Police searched their car and found thousands of dollars’ worth of items purchased with the counterfeit cards at department stores around the state.
Sharpe and Smith were both charged with 14 counts each of second-degree forgery, third-degree identity theft and credit card theft, along with credit card fraud, conspiracy to credit card fraud, sixth-degree larceny, conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny, illegal use of a credit card and conspiracy to commit illegal use of a credit card.
Smith was also charged with criminal attempt to obtain goods by illegal use of a credit card and criminal attempt to commit sixth-degree larceny.
Both were held on $75,000 bond and are due in Meriden Superior Court on Dec. 16.
