Teen Tricks Walmart Out of Over $24K, Police Say

Feb. 11, 2014 -- An Oklahoma teenager who police say masqueraded as a Walmart manager and pilfered three stores of cash -- one to the tune of $24,201 -- could be tried as an adult, authorities said. He has been charged with obtaining property by trickery.

The teen's name has not released because he is a juvenile. But the police report detailing the crime describes him as demonstrating a cool, self-confidence few adults could equal. He arrived at a Walmart in Moore, Okla., on Dec. 23 wearing a blue collared shirt, khaki pants and a jacket, according to the report. He had a Walmart name tag that correctly gave his name and showed him to be a 5-year company veteran, police said.

KFOR reported that the teen is 17 years old.

He allegedly told a customer service manager that he had arrived to do a pre-holiday inventory. He asked her to take him to the cash office, and she complied, police said. The two entered the cash office at 9:18 p.m., according to the police report.

He then proceeded to grill the woman about register audits -- how often the store had them, how they were being done, and how many they were able to do during the holiday, according to the report. He told her the store needed to do at least three more that night, and asked her to go do them, the report states. She complied, leaving the young man unattended, police said.

She was gone no more than 10 minutes, she told police.

When she returned, the young man said it had been nice to meet her, and that he would see her again after the holidays, and he even hugged her, according to the report. The two left the cash office at 9:41 p.m., the report said.

Later that same night, she returned to the cash office to put a bag of money in the moneybox, and that's when she found the box empty, except for one bag of one-dollar bills, police said.

A second Walmart employee who also saw the personable teen describes him in the report as being black, "feminine pretty," between 5'8" and 6'0" and wearing foundation makeup that was "too orange for his complexion."

Walmart surveillance video, the report says, shows him exiting the store into a waiting taxi.

During his 10 minutes alone in the cash office, he managed to make off with $24,201, the report says.

Surveillance video allowed authorities to identify the young man as someone who had previously worked as a Walmart employee in Oklahoma City, according to the report. He resigned from that job, says the report, after being confronted about taking money from the cash register. He was arrested on Jan. 30, according to KFOR.