LAUREL, DELAWARE: The Delaware State Police detained Ernest Ashlet and Sebastien Mombes, both from Orlando, Florida, on August 23, for attempting to buy auto parts with fake credit cards.
State troopers and officers from the Laurel Police Department arrived at West Side Auto Parts at 4740 Sharptown Road Wednesday, August 23, at around 10.05 am.
The officers were responding to a 911 call of someone attempting to buy car parts at the store using several different credit cards that raised suspicions, as per WBDT.
Who are Ernest Ashlet and Sebastien Mombes?
The two suspects who were arrested, both from Orlando, Florida, were identified as 19-year-old Ernest Ashlet and 30-year-old Sebastien Mombes.
The two men were allegedly attempting to buy $22,000 worth of automobile parts with the fraudulent credit cards.
Charges brought against Ernest Ashlet and Sebastien Mombes
Mombes and Ashlet were brought to Troop 5 and accused of several charges, including the use of a Payment Card Scanner (Felony), use of tools to facilitate identity theft, retail crime over $1,500, use of forgery devices, theft over $1,500, illegal use of a payment card over $1,500, and receiving stolen property under $1,500.
The two suspects had tried to make a getaway in a U-Haul van but their van was stopped on Ellis Grove Road at Collins Lane in Laurel after officers chased after them.
Both suspected Florida men were then apprehended and arrested.
When their van was searched, police found multiple cell phones, tablets, expired gift cards, and auto parts, along with a credit card scanner and embosser equipment.
Mombes, the passenger, and the driver, Ashlet, were securely taken into custody and the evidence bagged.
After being charged by Justice of the Peace Court 2, Ashlet and Mombes were both given a commitment order to Sussex Correctional Institution with cash bonds of $45,000 and secured bonds of $43,000, respectively.
Florida man gets prison time for conspiring to use credit cards fraudulently
In another similar incident, Florida man Jose Eloy Gonzalez Cuenca (33, Land O'Lakes) was given a sentence of four years and six months in federal prison for credit card fraud and felony identity theft by US District Judge Thomas P. Barber.
Gonzalez Cuenca had entered a guilty plea on December 1, 2021.
Gonzalez Cuenca allegedly participated in a plot between December 2020 and September 2021 to install credit card scanners on gas pumps in the Tampa region and across the country to steal credit card and debit card account data.
The conspirators then perpetrated fraud using the stolen information.
Gonzalez Cuenca sold credit card information and credit card skimmer equipment to others as part of the conspiracy.
He had no idea that one of the people to whom he had sold numbers and gadgets was a law enforcement confidential informant (CI).
Gonzalez Cuenca sold four credit card skimmers and 1,000 credit and debit card account numbers in April 2021.
