MONROEVILLE, Pa. — A local Sam’s Club was targeted in an elaborate theft scheme.
Darwin Figueroa-Rivera and Erick Liriano-Contreras are from the Dominican Republic and are here in the US with work VISAs.
But tonight — they’re behind bars at the Allegheny County Jail after Monroeville police say they committed multi-state credit card and identity fraud, then sent the money they stole back to the Dominican Republic.
“It’s just scary. My information is out there and I try to be careful,” Lisa Friedlander told Channel 11.
Friedlander lives in Kentucky and got an alert from her bank that suspicious charges were placed on her card from the Sam’s Club here in Monroeville.
“You get so many phishing emails and so on. And I thought this was a phishing email and I’m so grateful to Bank of America because they flagged it right away,” Friedlander said.
According to investigators, the two men were somehow accessing Sam’s Club members’ profiles and stealing credit card information.
When police responded to the report, they say they found them in the parking lot with a truck full of Red Bull and the credit card information of 11 different people.
Police say one of the men confessed to stealing banking information, then sending the proceeds back to the Dominican Republic.
Friedlander said she has a message for the two men accused of stealing her identity.
“Can’t you send money back home some other way? Can you find some other way to work hard and send money back home if that’s what you’re doing? That’s fine, you’re sending money back home… but cheating other people and businesses is not the way to do it.
Both men are in jail and a judge did not grant them bond because he said they are flight risks.
Sam’s Club released the following statement in response to the charges:
“We are aware of the incident being investigated at our Monroeville, PA location. We take the security of our members’ information very seriously and are cooperating fully with law enforcement in their investigation.”
Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
©2025 Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/XCUXZC2XYZHCRGNNGKFEX6U3LQ.png)
