Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Keith Wallis, 39, of Palm Beach, Florida, has been arrested after authorities say he spent eight months exploiting a vulnerability in Target’s retail infrastructure that security engineers describe as “the self-checkout.” His tool of choice was a 99-cent packet of taco seasoning, which he scanned in place of trading card boxes worth hundreds of dollars. He did this at Target locations from Miami to Orlando, generating nearly $40,000 in eBay revenue before anyone thought to check why the same guy kept buying so much cumin.
The vicious crime of taco seasoning/Pokémon switcheroos. (egunes_/depositphotos)
The scheme, according to Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, reads like the world’s lowest-stakes heist film. Wallis would enter a Target and pick up several large boxes of collectible trading cards, as well as an equal number of taco seasoning packets. He would proceed to the self-checkout lane, scan only the seasoning, bag everything, and walk out the front door. Apparently, this worked 75 times.
Wallis then allegedly flipped the stolen trading cards on eBay, where he operated with the kind of volume and consistency that, in a different context, might have earned him a small business loan. His revenue over eight months approached $40,000, putting him in roughly the same income bracket as a Florida public school teacher but with significantly lower overhead.
He now faces two counts of organized retail theft, three counts of dealing in stolen property, and one count of money laundering, which is the charge you get when your taco-seasoning-to-eBay pipeline becomes sophisticated enough to draw attention. If convicted on all six counts, he faces up to 90 years in the Florida Department of Corrections. That is not a typo. Ninety years. For trading cards. Acquired via taco seasoning. In Florida, a state where you can ride an alligator into a Waffle House and receive a citation. The Florida Department of Corrections has not commented on whether it has a wing specifically for people whose crimes are more embarrassing than dangerous.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw addressed the arrest in a statement that read like it was drafted for a cartel bust instead of whatever stealing trading cards with taco seasoning packets constitutes. “This arrest sends a clear message that organized retail theft, no matter how coordinated or far-reaching, will be aggressively investigated and prosecuted,” Bradshaw said. He also vowed that people who steal from Palm Beach County communities will be held accountable, which anyone who has followed Palm Beach County real estate development will find hilarious.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who presumably has access to a full calendar of attorney general things to do, chose this arrest as the moment to remind Floridians that their state has the “number one economy” in the nation. He attributed this to a “commitment to law and order,” which is a bold claim to make in a press release about a man who committed the same crime 75 times before anyone caught on. Target, a company that earned over $100 billion last year, did not comment on whether Keith Wallis and his taco seasoning were the reason a pack of paper towels now costs $14.
Investigators say they believe Wallis committed additional thefts at Walmart and Publix locations, which, if confirmed, would mean he successfully ran the same con at three different grocery-adjacent chains without any of them updating the software that lets you scan a McCormick packet and walk out with a booster box. Target, Walmart, and Publix have not commented on whether they plan to address the vulnerability, which is technically just “having a self-checkout.”
It’s as if giant retail chains have studied the economics around self-checkouts and have decided that the benefit of laying off human checkout clerks far outweighs the additional loss from theft.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
