Cuban in U.S. illegally nabbed with numerous cloned credit cards and suspicious fuel tank

A Cuban in the country illegally was arrested on Interstate 75 in Sumter County after a traffic stop uncovered an illegal fuel tank and dozens of cloned credit cards.

Cristian Rafael Perez Vargas, 29, was pulled over by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper at about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday while traveling southbound on I-75 near County Road 476B.

During the initial interaction, the trooper noticed an external diesel fuel tank attached to the truck’s exposed frame with a single ratchet strap. The hose attached to the tank was actively leaking fuel. The trooper also observed a household light switch near the driver’s floorboard, as well as multiple blank white cards, a red banking card and a Cuban identification card sitting on the center console beneath Vargas’ Florida driver’s license.

Due to a language barrier, the trooper used a translation app on his phone to communicate with Vargas. A backup trooper soon arrived on the scene with K-9 Flip, who conducted an open-air sniff and alerted to the presence of narcotics in the vehicle. Vargas denied having any drugs and could not explain the dog’s alert.

During a subsequent search of the truck, troopers found a brown and black wallet concealed inside a natural void in the driver’s side door. The wallet contained Vargas’ U.S. Employment Authorization Card along with 32 credit, debit and gift cards. Three additional cards were found in the center console, including a Bank of America Mastercard belonging to a female victim.

An investigation revealed that 34 of the 35 recovered cards had their magnetic strips altered or erased. Troopers determined 31 of the cards, many of which appeared to be standard Wal-Mart gift cards, had been maliciously re-encoded with stolen banking information belonging to other individuals. The report noted that this type of data is typically harvested through gas pump skimmers, handheld restaurant skimmers, or online merchant data breaches.

Vargas refused to answer any questions after being read his Miranda warnings.

He was arrested and booked at the Sumter County Detention Center on multiple felony charges, including trafficking in counterfeit credit cards, possessing the identification of another person without consent, unlawful conveyance of fuel, and 34 counts of altering a credit card invoice.

Vargas was being held without bond due to an active immigration detainer. He is to be turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.