Toccoa Police Arrest One For Credit Card Fraud

One person faces custody after an allegation of credit card fraud in Toccoa.

According to Toccoa Police Chief Tim Jarrell, officers from the police department responded to Wal-Mart last Friday afternoon to look for a person possibly using a stolen credit card.

“When officers arrived, Wal-Mart’s Loss Prevention pointed out a gentleman to us,” said Jarrell. “When we went to approach him, he ran. We had a small foot pursuit that took place that went behind the Verizon store, through the wooded area, across the four-lane on 17. The suspect was finally stopped on the other side of 17 in a wooded area.”

Jarrell said the suspect was initially identified as Joseph Lucious.

However, Jarrell said that obtaining the suspect’s true identity has been a challenge.

“During the course of our interviews with him, we were able to determine that he had many alias date of births, so we are not really able to determine his age, though we do know that he is over the age of 21,” said Jarrell. “He is originally from New York. He has been living in the Smyrna and Douglassville area for some time. After being booked into the Stephens County Jail and his fingerprints being run through the LiveScan fingerprint system, we were able to find out that Joseph Lucious is one of his aliases. His real name is Gemie Maxwell.”

Maxwell, or Lucious, is charged with one count of Financial Transaction Card Fraud and is currently in Stephens County Jail.

He also has an outstanding probation warrant from Douglas County.

Jarrell said police believe the suspect was using stolen credit cards to transfer information onto pre-paid gift cards based on what was found when police searched the suspect’s vehicle.

“Inside the vehicle, we were able to locate a laptop computer and credit card skimmer and writer that we believe is used to write a credit card and then to use a pre-paid card, Visa, Mastercard, or what have you and use it to read and to place the card information from the real card onto the gift card,” said Jarrell.

According to Jarrell, police also found stolen credit cards and numerous gift cards in the vehicle.

Jarrell said the investigation is ongoing and additional charges are pending.