A man was arrested Thursday after Florida Highway Patrol found allegedly altered and re-encoded credit cards, debit cards and gift cards in the man's car during a traffic stop. A search of his laptop later revealed more than 1,700 card numbers stored on the computer.
David Ortiz Barban, 38, faces multiple felony charges related to fraud, counterfeiting and forgery, according to the arrest report.
When Florida Highway Patrol pulled Ortiz Barban over on Interstate 75 in Sumter County on Thursday around 1:30 p.m. for "multiple traffic violations," he appeared to be "overly nervous," according to the report.
During a search of the car after a K-9 had alerted on the vehicle, a trooper found a magnetic stripe encoder and several checks, according to the arrest document.
Several credit, debit and gift cards were found in the car and on Ortiz Barban, and when a trooper opened a laptop in the car "to search for contraband," the screen showed an open application for a software that can read, encode and erase data on the magnetic stripes of cards, according to the arrest report.
Eight of the nine cards found in the car and on Ortiz Barban had labels attached with what "appeared to be PIN numbers" written on them, the document states.
All nine cards had been "altered from their original issued format" and had been re-encoded with different financial institution information, according to the report.
The magnetic strips had been erased before being "re-encoded with a stolen credit card number that did not belong to the individual who possessed them at the time of the traffic stop," the report states. In some cases, what appeared to be gift cards had allegedly been re-encoded with baking account numbers, according to the document.
A search warrant was issued for the laptop, and a search revealed more than 1,700 card numbers and "a substantial number" of names and other identifying information such as PINs and zip codes, according to the arrest document.
Ortiz Barban was taken to Sumter County Jail without incident, and the investigation is ongoing, per the arrest report.
It's not the first time Ortiz Barban has faced these types of charges. He is due in court in Hillsborough County on Oct. 6 on charges related to counterfeit credit cards and fraudulent use of a payment card re-encoder stemming from a 2025 arrest.
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