Two of five men charged on turnpike in credit-card scheme plead guilty

Staff report

WARREN

Two of the five men arrested during a traffic stop on the Ohio Turnpike in Braceville Township on Nov. 12 have pleaded guilty to reduced charges related to making fake identification and credit cards.

Zakaria O. Warsame, 35, of Columbus, pleaded guilty Monday before Judge Peter Kontos to one count of complicity to identity fraud and one count of possessing criminal tools.

Jibril M. Abdiselam, 24, of Seattle, pleaded guilty to one count of forgery and one count of complicity to identity fraud.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol made the stop because of driving violations. The officer smelled marijuana, which led to a search of the car, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said.

The search turned up a scanner, embosser and other tools used to make fake cards. Marijuana also was found, the patrol said.

Warsame and Abdiselam will be sentenced in about four weeks, after the county Adult Probation Department conducts a pre-sentence investigation into their backgrounds.

They could each get up to two years in prison or probation.

Gabe Wildman, an assistant county prosecutor, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation and state agencies looked into the backgrounds of the five men involved in the turnpike traffic stop but “found no evidence of any kind linking them to anything other than credit-card fraud.”

Cases are still pending against the three other men — Mohammeddeq M. Hassan, 27, of Tukwila, Wash.; Mohamed A. Mahamoud, 26, of Columbus; and Said S. Abu, 24, of Columbus.