(WWJ) – A young West Michigan man is looking at multiple felony charges for allegedly carrying out a widespread fraud and identity theft scheme targeting Meijer.
Nicholas Mui of Grand Haven was arraigned in late December on charges of conducting a criminal enterprise, using a computer to commit a crime and identity theft, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Thursday.
Mui, 22, allegedly accessed login credentials to Meijer’s mPerks loyalty program and then sold them on the internet for “the wrongful use of buyers,” according to Nessel’s office.
The mPerks incentive program allows customers to accrue store-credit points into their individual accounts by making purchases at the grocer. The points accrued can be used as cash-value towards purchases.
Meijer customers and mPerks account holders had their mPerks accounts compromised, login credentials sold online, and their accrued purchase points stolen and used fraudulently, Nessel’s office says.
Authorities believe Mui obtained login credentials from a separate data breach — reportedly the app MyFitnessPal — and then cross-referenced those credentials for access success with the mPerks infrastructure. He then allegedly sold those login credentials on the internet and the purchasers of the login credentials then used the points balance to fund their own purchases from Meijer, with incidents documented in both online and in-store purchases.
Hundreds of customers impacted by the scam have since had their accrued points reinstated, with Meijer’s total corporate losses currently believed to exceed $1 million.
Meijer first got word of the alleged scheme last April and May when they started getting complaints from customers that their points were vanishing. An investigation by the AG’s FORCE Team, Meijer corporate investigators and the Michigan State Police Fraud Investigation Section eventually led to Mui.
Authorities served a search warrant in September, seizing more than $20,000 in cash and over $450,000 in cryptocurrency assets from Mui.
Nessel said at a press conference Thursday while there were hundreds of victims, Mui has been charged with seven counts of identity theft for specified account thefts of customers in Bay, Emmett, Ingham, Kent, Livingston, Marquette and St. Joseph Counties.
His next court date is scheduled for Jan. 9.
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