Three people in Corona, California, learned that a $1,400 shopping trip can become considerably more expensive when the credit card isn’t yours. What began as a call about a suspicious purchase at WSS Shoes ended with three arrests and police uncovering what they say was a much larger fraud operation.
According to the City of Corona Police Department, officers responded to the store on August 29 after employees said three people were attempting to make the purchase using a stolen credit card. Rather than getting away with a new collection of shoes, the group soon had the department’s Drone as First Responders team helping officers track them down.
Police said the investigation didn’t stop with the attempted $1,400 transaction. Officers connected the three suspects to two additional fraudulent transactions in Corona and determined that the rental car they were using had been obtained through identity theft.
Things continued getting worse from there, as police said one of the suspects was on Post-Release Community Supervision while another had two outstanding felony warrants. All three were ultimately arrested on new felony charges, turning what began as a retail fraud call into quite the collection of legal problems.
They Really Thought They Got Away With It
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The video features surveillance footage of the thieves taking a few things, including what appears to be a television, alongside several other bags of merchandise, outside the store. The camera then focuses on two accomplices who are waiting outside.
After taking everything outside, the thieves take the time to quickly scan the parking lot to ensure they’re able to get away with their plan. However, after shoving all the merchandise into the trunk of the getaway car, an unmarked police car pulls up and traps them in the parking space.
The officer gets out of his car and walks over to the thieves, who must have realized just how badly they messed up, judging by how compliant they were. After getting everyone out of the car, the cops were able to handcuff and arrest everyone involved without further issue.
Additional information about the suspects, including their names and ages, was not made available in this post.
Comments and Reactions to the Corona Fraud Arrests
People in the comments had plenty to say about the suspects, but some were just as entertained by the Corona Police Department’s presentation of the arrests. One person joked that the department sounded like Batman, adding that the captions were “something Batman would say” before congratulating officers on the arrests.
Others focused on details visible in the video, including one suspect’s Los Angeles shirt and the vehicle involved. Two separate commenters joked that “the Los Angeles shirt says it all,” while another summed up the situation as nothing more than “Nissan Altima driver activities.”
Not everyone was quite as impressed by the dramatic presentation, with one commenter sarcastically telling officers to “give yourselves another handshake after that.” Still, between the drone-assisted search, the stolen credit card, previous fraudulent transactions, an identity-theft rental car, and outstanding warrants, Corona police certainly had more to deal with than a questionable trip to the shoe store.