Retail thieves with 146 Red Bull cases in U-Haul caught making fake debit cards, police say
🔴 Police found 146 cases of Red Bull inside a U-Haul parked outside a Paramus BJ's.
🔴 Investigators also recovered blank EBT cards, fraudulent debit cards and a card re-encoding device.
🔴 Three New York City men were arrested, but police are still looking for a fourth suspect.
PARAMUS — One suspect remains at large after police found a U-Haul van with a haul of stolen Red Bull and equipment to make fraudulent debit cards, authorities said.
Three men from New York City — Tavonte McClary, 26; Shaheim Scarborough, 22; and Nicholas Whitaker, 27 — were arrested near the BJ’s Wholesale Club on Route 17 N. in Paramus on Tuesday.
Each man faces at least a half-dozen charges, including organized retail theft, credit card fraud, identity theft, trafficking in personal identification, possession of stolen property, hindering, and use of a re-encoder device.
Investigators said they recovered $7,928 in stolen merchandise, including 146 cases of Red Bull Energy Drinks. They also found 17 blank EBT cards, four stolen or fraudulent debit cards, two identification cards in different names, and a credit card re-encoding device.
BJ's staff later told detectives that all the Red Bull was bought fraudulently.
Police find U-Haul packed with Red Bull
Five officers at first found only McClary and more than 100 cases of Red Bull inside the parked U-Haul, police said.
As officers investigated the vehicle, they saw Scarborough walking toward the van. He was pushing a shopping cart filled with even more cases of the energy drink.
Officers said McClary and Scarborough each had two blank EBT cards and gave fake IDs to investigators. Scarborough also had debit cards with various names, police said.
Surveillance reveals two more individuals
Soon after, detectives looked at surveillance footage from inside BJ's showing two more people involved in the scheme.
Video showed Whitaker was pushing a shopping cart in the parking lot filled with 15 cases of Red Bull around the same time that Scarborough was doing the same thing, police said.
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Whitaker saw the officers and ran off, leaving the energy drinks behind, police said. He was later arrested.
However, police couldn't find the fourth person seen with more Red Bull. An investigation is ongoing.
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