Police: $570G stolen in Target coupon scam
Ali Jaafar, 33, of Rockville, Md., was one of two men arrested Thursday and charged with grand larceny linked to a coupon scam at Target stores in Nassau County since December. (Sept. 23, 2011) Credit: NCPD/
Two men used a mix of sweet talk, bribery and coercion to get clerks at stores in Nassau County to accept invalid expired coupons, ringing up $570,000 in losses for Target stores alone, Nassau County police said Friday.
Ali Jaafar, 33, of 317 Bradley Ave., Rockville, Md., and Hassan Soueidan, 28, of 137-28 Juniper Ave., Flushing, were arraigned Friday on grand larceny charges in First District Court. Judge Eric Bjorneby released Soueidan without requiring any bail, and set bail for Jaafar at $25,000 bond or $10,000 cash, the district attorney's office said.
Det. Lt. Kevin Smith, a Nassau police spokesman, said the two men are suspected of running similar scams at stores in Suffolk County, New York City, upstate New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Smith said the loss prevention unit at Target alerted police and the men were arrested Thursday as they tried the scam at the Target store on Corporate Drive in Westbury.
A Target spokesman, Antoine LaFromboise, said, "I can confirm we have worked with law enforcement in this case. Any other questions can be directed to law enforcement."
Police in Suffolk County said Friday they were pursuing the case with detectives from the Crimes Against Persons squad of the Nassau Police Department.
Nassau police said the first scam in the county apparently occurred at a Target store Dec. 10 and continued "numerous" times at other Target stores. The two men used the expired coupons to buy gift cards, cellphones, video-game systems and other merchandise, police said.
Over time, "they built up a rapport with cashiers," Smith said.
Hassan Soueidan, 28, of Flushing, was one of two men arrested Thursday and charged with grand larceny linked to a coupon scam at Target stores in Nassau County since December. (Sept. 23, 2011) Credit: NCPD/
He said the men would persuade the cashiers to swipe the coupons four or five times to build up the dollar amount. He said Target's internal security had discovered a pattern in the scam, had fired several cashiers and alerted Nassau County police.
"They would sweet-talk the cashiers . . . give them cash or gift cards at other times," Smith said. With a less experienced store worker, "they would tell the cashier how to do it."
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