Two South Florida men are facing charges after authorities said they bought thousands of dollars’ worth of Spam and other items using fraudulent public assistance information.
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Myrthland Ince, 33, and Romario Stewart, 32, were arrested Monday on 10 counts each of fraudulent use of identification, along with grand theft and public assistance fraud charges, Miami-Dade jail records showed.
According to arrest reports, the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office Organized Retail Crimes Squad has been working with Walmart Global Investigations on the fraudulent use of compromised Florida Electronic Benefit Transfer accounts and NationsBenefits accounts and had identified several suspects who were targeting Sam’s Club and Walmart stores across South Florida to purchase large amounts of perishable items.
On Monday, authorities were conducting surveillance at the Sam’s Club at 8425 Northwest 13th Terrace in Doral, where Stewart and Ince arrived and purchased over $2,700 worth of items including 20 Tide liquid detergents, 18 Cafe Bustelo, 70 Spam cans and 1 Member’s Mark cashews, the reports said.
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The pair paid at self-checkout using 10 different NationsBenefits cards from compromised accounts using the victims’ information, the reports said.
Authorities detained them as they left the store and Ince was found to be in possession with six different debit cards that had been re-encoded with NationsBenefits account numbers, while Stewart had four re-encoded debit cards, the reports said.
Ince and Stewart, both of Hallandale Beach, were arrested and booked into jail. Both appeared before a judge on Tuesday, who ordered them to stay away from all Sam’s Club and Walmart stores in Miami-Dade.
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Ince’s bond was set at $30,000 while Stewarts’s was set at $50,000.