6 arrested after alleged $1.4M Walmart fraud ring busted in Peoria

Peoria police arrested six people accused of using fraud to buy $1.4 million in Walmart merchandise and ship it overseas, following a two-month investigation.

Police identified the suspects as Thien Tran, 42; Uy Vu Phan, 55; Minh Ngoc Nguyen, 57; Hie Xuan Le, 24; Hoài Nguyen Nguyen, 30; and Hailey Hang Nguyen, 26.

Each was booked into Maricopa County jail and is being held on a $500,000 cash-only bond.

The probe began after a Walmart delivery driver reported delivering multiple packages with different names to the same Peoria home.

Investigators discovered a group of people were allegedly using credit card information stolen from Walmart customer accounts to buy merchandise from Walmart.com. They would then ship it to Vietnam in shipping containers.

Search warrants were served simultaneously by SWAT teams from the Peoria, Mesa, Avondale and Goodyears police departments. Homeland Security Investigations and Walmart Loss Prevention also helped.

They found $25,000 in merchandise, $35,000 in cash and $45,000 in gold bars.

There were 10 people detained, but four of them were released after being interviewed.

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