At about 12:57pm Wednesday afternoon, Turlock Police Detective Urban received information from an allied agency notifying him of a possible suspect and vehicle being involved in installing a skimming device at an ATM.

Using the city’s new license plate readers, Urban was able to track down the vehicle to the drive-thru of Westamerica Bank in the 2800 block of Geer Road.

A traffic stop was made where Marius Onisei, 31, of Stockton, was contacted and identified in the vehicle.

During a subsequent search of the vehicle, over thirty gift cards that were embedded with multiple accounts of stolen information belonging to different people were located.

Onisei was arrested and taken to the Turlock Public Safety Facility for questioning.

Following the interview, Onisei was booked into the Stanislaus County Public Safety Center on the charge of identity theft.

“Thanks to the use of new technology and coordinated efforts of multiple cooperative agencies, we are able to aggressively pursue and investigate identity theft cases such as this,” said Detective Urban.

The investigation remains ongoing. Anyone with information that could assist in it is encouraged to call Detective Nathan Urban at 209-668-6571.