18 federally indicted in Flint for Walmart prepaid card scam

FLINT, MI - Eighteen people have been indicted by a Flint federal grand jury for a scam involving the use of Walmart prepaid cards to wire money from the retail giant for their personal funds.

Unsealed on Monday, March 12, the federal indictment alleges that the 18 named defendants and "others known and unknown to the grand jury" conspired in the scheme to scam Walmart into wiring funds to illegitimate prepaid cards.

Two of the defendants, Latoriya Brown and Latrina Davis, were each arraigned Tuesday, March 13, on a single count of wire fraud conspiracy and released on $10,000 unsecured bond.

MLive-The Flint Journal is not naming the other defendants as they have not yet been arraigned.

All 18 are indicted on a single count of wire fraud conspiracy, punishable by up to a $250,000 fine and 20 years behind bars.

Neither the U.S. Attorney's office nor defense for Brown or Davis could immediately be reached for comment on the matter on Wednesday, March 14.

According to the indictment, the scam began in January 2016 when members of the conspiracy would travel to Walmart stores in the Eastern District of Michigan and elsewhere to acquire prepaid cards.

When the checkout cashier would scan the barcode on the falsified prepaid card, a wire transmission from Walmart's corporate office in Missouri would activate the account number assigned to the card, the indictment claims.

When the cashier was instructed to load a dollar value onto the card, a member of the alleged conspiracy would either slide an illegitimate credit or debit card or pretend to slide a card through the reader as if they were paying for the transaction, the indictment said.

A member of the conspiracy would then instruct the cashier to manually complete the transaction by pressing various sequences involving the cash tender key, which would fraudulently show that the card was paid for and wire funds from Walmart ePay databases in Colorado or Arkansas to the card, the indictment said.

After the transaction was complete, the conspirators would then allegedly convert funds on the prepaid cards to their own personal use, according to the indictment.

Additional details on the scam, including how much money the group was allegedly able to obtain, was not included in the indictment.

According to reporting from the Sentinel-Tribune in Wood County, Ohio, three of the defendants were also indicted in Ohio last year on various charges involving a scam with Walmart counterfeit cash credit cards.

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