Seven people were arrested by the Douglas County Sheriff's Office in connection with a huge money laundering scheme, reports KDRO.
Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock called the scheme "one of the largest in recorded money laundering operations in the history of the state of Colorado," during a press conference on Tuesday, June 1.
Several Colorado law enforcement agencies partnered with the targeted companies in 2019 to build a case on mass thefts.
According to KDRO, the participating retailers include:
- Albertsons
- Safeway
- Walmart
- Home Depot
- Target
- King Soopers
- Sephora
- Lowes
- Vitamin Cottage
- Whole Foods
The crimes affected stores from Pueblo to Cheyenne and Frisco and Burlington. The retailers provided investigators the ID numbers of the stolen items which helped them discover where they were being shipped.
The stolen items, which were sold online, had high-end value including cosmetics, birth control, tools, and vitamins.
According to Spurlock, they recovered $1.7 million worth of products but the estimated total loss of stolen items is $5.2 million.
The seven suspects were all from outside the U.S. but were in the county legally, reports KDRO.
The suspects have been identified as Dziyana Altshuler, Ilona Nastas, Grigore Tataru, Evgeny Shadrin, Ivan Biazliudau, Dzianis Artyushkevich, Dmitry Altshuler.
They face 78 charges from money laundering to the illegal mailing of contraband through the U.S. Postal Service.