A man has been arrested and accused of impersonating a Circle K employee, as well as stealing more than $1,400 worth of lottery tickets from several convenience stores.
Identified as D.D., aged 30, the man was taken into custody after at least three incidents were reported at Circle K venues in Mesa, with the first incident taking place on June 27 at a store near Lindsay and Baseline roads.
A store employee called police after the suspect walked out with lottery tickets, but this was not an isolated case, as police received a second tip-off on July 1, with the same suspect reported at a second store, near Stapley Drive and University Drive.
In both cases D.D. was wearing a Circle K shirt, and then, an hour later the same person appeared at a store near McKellips Road and Power Road. In all instances, securities caught the man, and at the third store, he even resorted to violence – punching a legitimate Circle K employee.
However, police responded quickly and managed to apprehend D.D. at the site of the third store. Gerri Martinez, a part-time worker at a Circle K on Baseline, has spoken to a local media outlet condemning the thefts.
“It makes me mad. Employees lose their jobs over it. Somebody else is impersonating a Circle K employee and they can just walk into a store and steal stuff? It just blows my mind,” Martinez explained.
Detective Jose Aguirre has argued that similar scams and theft attempts are not uncommon but what the people perpetuating them fail to realize is that they are going to get caught before long.
In the meantime, the real cost of the thefts is borne by the employees who may face disciplinary action over the missing tickets.