A South Florida man was arrested at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after returning from a trip to Jamaica with more than a dozen credit and debit cards belonging to other people, according to federal court documents.<\/p>\n
Mardoche Petit-Phare, 30, of North Miami, was taken into custody Monday after arriving on a JetBlue flight from Montego Bay and now faces a federal charge of aggravated identity theft.<\/p>\n
According to a federal criminal complaint, Petit-Phare was selected for additional examination at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint after his arrival.<\/p>\n
During a search of his cross-body bag, officers allegedly discovered bank-issued credit and debit cards belonging to at least 15 other people. Authorities said two additional cards belonging to other individuals were found in his carry-on luggage.<\/p>\n
Petit-Phare told investigators he received the cards from \u201chis friend,\u201d according to the complaint.<\/p>\n
Federal investigators subsequently contacted several of the cardholders, who reported thousands of dollars in unauthorized transactions.<\/p>\n
One victim\u2019s card was allegedly used the previous Tuesday and Wednesday for transactions totaling nearly $3,300 at a RIU resort in Montego Bay. Authorities said the transactions appeared to have been made online.<\/p>\n
Three $1 transactions were then made in person at the resort on Friday, according to investigators, who said they appeared to be test transactions using contactless and chip readers.<\/p>\n
Another victim\u2019s card was allegedly used for more than $1,000 in transactions in or near Kingston.<\/p>\n
Investigators said a search of Petit-Phare\u2019s cellphone uncovered photographs of multiple allegedly fraudulent driver\u2019s licenses bearing his photograph but containing other people\u2019s biographical information, including dates of birth and driver\u2019s license numbers.<\/p>\n
Authorities also allegedly found photographs of credit cards in other people\u2019s names and images of checks, including high-value U.S. Department of the Treasury checks, made payable to other individuals.<\/p>\n
The complaint states that Petit-Phare became combative as officers attempted to escort him to a holding cell and had to be restrained by several officers before being placed in handcuffs and leg restraints.<\/p>\n
Petit-Phare faces a federal aggravated identity theft charge, which carries a mandatory two-year prison term upon conviction under federal law.<\/p>\n
He was scheduled to make an appearance in federal court in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. Records also showed that he was being held at the Broward Sheriff\u2019s Office Main Jail on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A South Florida man was arrested at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after returning from a trip to Jamaica…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-387935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}