ST. LOUIS — A man who admitted to participating in a nationwide retail fraud scheme used a sleight-of-hand trick to steal over $157,000 from national retailers.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, 28-year-old Bazili Anghel Anghel admitted that he and his accomplices carried out the scheme at least 90 times in Missouri and 19 other states, stealing or trying to steal a total of $157,229.
The group would bring electronics to store cashiers to “buy” and count out the purchase price in cash, putting the bills into piles. As they put the money into a single stack, they would secretly slide bills from the bottom into a pocket or purse before handing the remaining cash to the cashier…