A Tempe Home Depot employee was arrested by Secret Service investigators on Friday for distributing roughly $400,000 in counterfeit US currency, according to the federal law enforcement agency.
Adrian Jean Pineda, the suspect, used to work as a vault associate at the shop near I-10 and Baseline. His job entailed counting deposits from the store’s registers and then transferring the money to a bank.
During his shifts, Pineda is suspected of removing cash from the store’s deposits and swapping it with counterfeit ones.
Home Depot personnel called the Secret Service in late December 2021, reporting Pineda had passed fraudulent money, according to court records.
The store lost $387,500 between January 2018 and January 2022, according to Secret Service officials, and Pineda was captured on tape sneaking in counterfeit money at least 16 times.
“He was taking out the real money and replacing it with counterfeit, so if you had a thousand dollars of counterfeit that he brought in to work that day, he would take ten 100 dollar bills out of the stack for the bank deposit,” said Frank Boudreaux Jr., Special Agent In Charge with the U.S. Secret Service’s Phoenix Field Office. “There was a lot of coordination, and it was strategic in proving that this was knowingly and willingly committed.”
The serial number on the counterfeit bills recovered from Wells Fargo Bank and utilized by Pineda’s store read “play money,” according to special agents.
The investigators subsequently discovered that prop money could be purchased on Amazon for $9 for a box of 100 individual $100 bills.
Secret Service agents confiscated $5,000 in counterfeit money and recovered $5,300 in real currency during Pineda’s arrest. Pineda’s residence also had an additional $22,000 in genuine currency. He allegedly confessed to the crime, according to investigators.
Pineda, who has been released without bail, is due in court on February 7th.
Source: FOX10
