Madison County Sheriff Ben Stewart reports that on Tuesday, Dec. 15, a 911 call was received at the Communications Center in the Madison County Sheriff’s Office concerning a suspicious motorist traveling down I-10 in the eastbound lane. Two officers responded to the call and located the vehicle and driver and observed the driver commit a traffic violation that brought about a traffic stop around 1:39 p.m. The officers identified the driver as Matteo Meloni Vimo, 21, of Miami, Fl. and soon realized that Vimo was driving while his license had been suspended. During the traffic stop, they were given permission for a consensual search of Vimo’s vehicle, and the officers discovered luggage in the front seat of Vimo’s beige Mini Cooper that contained marijuana. In addition to the marijuana found, officers found an electronic reader, writer and encoder machine commonly used for credit, debit and gift cards, two laptops, multiple papers with personal information belonging to other individuals, multiple identification and debit and credit cards belonging to other individuals. Vimo was immediately placed under arrest and transported to the Madison County Jail without incident. The continued investigation discovered at least 13 separate credit and debit cards were fraudulent and had been digitally re-encoded with the names and accounts of other persons as well as one stolen debit card, two stolen IDs and one fake driver’s license. Vimo was charged with driving while license suspended, possession of marijuana less than 20 grams, theft, traffic in counterfeit cards, possession of credit card making equipment, possession of personal identification, and possession of forged driver’s license.
