NAPLES, Fla. — The Naples Police Department says two men could have scammed many people if officers didn't arrest them when they did.
Police say the scheme involved gift cards and fake barcodes to a criminal's bank account.
Officers arrested 26-year-old Kirils Gula and 26-year-old Maksims Slapins, Latvian nationals.
According to police, the men would steal gift cards, put a fake bar code on them and put it back on the shelves where they were taken.
Then, police say if a customer bought it and scanned the bar code to activate it, the gift card would be redirected to a crime syndicate's bank account instead.
The way officers caught the suspects — it was simply being at the right place at the right time.
Police say a detective found Gula and Slapins acting suspicious at a Walgreens on Jan. 29. They said the pair was at a gift card rack, trying to conceal something.
Then, the detective said they went to a Publix and another Walgreens, but didn't buy anything.
The detective followed them the whole time and pulled the pair over because of expired tags.
Gula, police say, told them he was in the United States for 30 days and didn't have a driver's license yet. However, the detective found out Gula was here for four months and had a Latvian passport.
When Gula gave the detective permission to search the car, that's when they said many gift cards were found. Detectives say they also found receipts showing they were bought with other debit cards.
Through the search, police say they found a cooler bag with 176 gift cards in them worth about $15,000. Each one was labeled with the address of where they were taken.
They were both taken into custody and police say the men confessed to a large fraud scheme.
According to Gula, they were told to steal gift cards from stores all over Florida from Miami to Tampa and Jacksonville.
They were arrested and charged with scheme to defraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
