Warsaw Woman Arrested For Fraud At Walmart
WARSAW— A Warsaw woman was recently arrested after she allegedly took UPC codes from cheaper items at Walmart and used them to scan more expensive items.
Latisha Ruth Hernandez, 25, 108 N. Rebecca St., Warsaw, was charged with four counts of making a false sales document, all level 6 felonies and four counts of theft, all class A misdemeanors.
On Aug. 12, an officer with the Warsaw Police Department investigated a report of theft at Walmart. The officer spoke with a Walmart employee who had been reviewing security footage of transactions involving Hernandez. She told the officer that Hernandez used UPC stickers from cheaper items to self-scan expensive items, thus resulting in theft.
On June 26, Hernandez and a woman entered Walmart, selected food items and removed the UPC codes. The two went to the self-checkout and scanned the less expensive items’ UPC codes in place of the expensive items’ codes.
On June 27, Hernandez again entered Walmart and selected household items. She took these items to the self-checkout and used the UPC from a candlestick valued at $.50 to scan expensive items. Once again, she passes all points of pay without paying the correct price for the expensive.
On July 7, Hernandez returned to Walmart with a man and a woman. The trio selected three diffusers valued at $39.87 and other household items. Hernandez and the woman went to the self-checkout and scanned the diffusers with a UPC from a floss label valued at $.48. Out of 35 items in the cart, only 22 were on the receipt. Many of those items were scanned with lower value UPC codes. Shortly thereafter, Hernandez went to the service desk and returned the diffusers without a receipt and received $151.31 on a shopping card.
On July 11, Hernandez again entered Walmart. This time with one woman in tow. The pair selected various health and beauty products. They went to the self-checkout and used a UPC code from a floss label to scan the health and beauty products. Hernandez and the woman used the shopping card obtained on July 7 to pay for the improperly scanned items.
Walmart employees told officers the thefts involving Hernandez resulted in a total loss of $547.44.
Hernandez was booked in the Kosciusko County Jail Sept. 19, with a bond of $6,000 surety and cash.