HARRISBURG — Attorney General Dave Sunday announced charges against four New York men regarding a scheme involving merchandise returns for purchases made with fake cash at stores in 16 Pennsylvania counties.
The men — Fitzroy James, Fabian Coke, Gabriel Young, and Christopher Nicholas — are charged with felony counts of organized retail theft, dealing in proceeds of unlawful activity, conspiracy, and related offenses.
Efforts to take the men into custody are ongoing.
They targeted Kohl’s, Target, Home Depot, Lowe’s, and other retailers for thefts — which involved payment for goods with counterfeit bills and subsequent returns made to receive real money. More than $20,000 in purchases or attempted purchases, with fake cash, were made at stores in 16 counties across the Commonwealth.
The group profited at least $12,436 from returns.
“This out-of-state band of thieves knowingly passed fake bills with a plan to return items for real cash — that is organized retail theft, pure and simple,” Attorney General Sunday said. “We collaborated with federal, state, and local partners to track this criminal activity and filed charges that will end this conduct.”
The group is suspected in similar crimes in several other states.
In Pennsylvania, they frequented stores in Allegheny, Berks, Blair, Bucks, Centre, Chester, Columbia, Cumberland, Dauphin, Delaware, Lancaster, Lebanon, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton and York counties.
Collaborating with the Office of Attorney General on this investigation were the U.S. Secret Service, Pennsylvania State Police, and North Fayette, Silver Spring, West Manchester, and Hamden Township police departments, as well as loss prevention professionals from the aforementioned retailers.
The cases will be prosecuted by Deputy Attorney General Jenna Strausbaugh of the Office of Attorney General’s Organized Retail Crime Unit. Criminal charges, and any discussion thereof, are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
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