CAPE CORAL, Fla. — The Cape Coral Police Department says a local Tik Toker has been arrested for stealing from Target.
On October 30th, Target says an unknown woman entered the store and picked up items for purchase.
While at the self-checkout, the suspect did not scan the items' barcodes, according to the department.
Mercedes Simonds is the public information officer for CCPD.
"Initially, our officers got a report from Target about this retail theft. They looked into it. They got the security footage. They had a still frame of this woman who’s basically scamming the self check out at target," she said.
Police say she used a fake barcode with cheaper prices.
Sixteen household goods and pieces of clothing were stolen- totaling a loss valued at just over $500.
After police posted the suspect's picture on their Facebook and Instagram accounts, an anonymous caller ID'd the woman as Marlena Velez.
The caller provided officers with Velez's Instagram handle, too.
A video posted on Velez's Tik Tok account documents herself as she gets ready to leave her home on October 30th - in the same outfit and glasses of which police say she was wearing in surveillance video.
Velez is not alone... Take a look at this video, shop lifter Shanna Ball was caught on camera at the Miromar Outlet's Kate Spade store in Estero.
The police have a helping hand inside of these stores. It's the artificial intelligence working alongside self check-out cameras that can recognize repeat shoplifters.
Gene Hoyt is an information systems professor for FGCU.
"AI is taking all these items that have been put into the system, [watching] possible movements that indicates somebody is stealing," he said.
He says, it's programmed to notice movements like shopping cart to pocket and it can often tell if a person is not scanning an item at all. Or in Velez's case, scanning a bar-code for a cheaper item than the one being bagged.
In the video, which has more than 150,000 views, Velez is seen documenting a trip to T.J Maxx and Target.
Velez records herself picking out items and placing them in her car after leaving both stores.
She is facing one charge of petit theft more than $100 less than $750.
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