This new year of 2014 has not been a great year for the retail store Target. First, the stolen information incident that occurred at the end of last year was a disaster, as well as the phishing scams that happened not long afterwards. Now, with these incidents just starting to be placed in the company’s history, another incident has surfaced connected to the store’s stolen information incident.

According to The Huffington Post, two Mexican citizens, Mary Carmen Garcia and Daniel Guardiola Dominguez from Monterrey, Mexico, arrived at the Texas state border with 96 fraudulent credit cards. Victor Rodriguez, McAllen Police Chief, stated these cards were used to purchase “tens of thousands of dollars’ worth” of merchandise from various well-known retailers in the area, such as: Best Buy, Wal-Mart and Toys R Us.

Rodriguez told authorities that he was unsure that these were the first arrests related to the Target information breach; however, the store stated last week that it has nullified numerous operations that sought to scam breach victims by common contact methods, such as: email, phone calls, and text messages.

These arrests did not occur without surprise. This past Sunday, Rodriguez stated that federal officials notified police that two suspects were located at the Anzalduas International Bridge trying to re-enter the United States and they had possession of 96 fraudulent credit cards. Rodriguez also stated that the suspects were “singling out Sundays” for their shopping sprees so that banks would not be as quick to detect their fraudulent activities.

In a report by CBS News, the credit cards that Garcia and Dominguez had were made using stolen bank information from Rio Grande Valley residents during the Target data breach.

In conclusion, the McAllen Police Department is reportedly working with the federal officials in an investigation to determine how the two suspects gained possession of the cards, as well as who provided the suspects with the stolen bank information.

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