The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office began receiving numerous reports of fraudulent credit and debit card use/transactions on Friday, and as of Tuesday has received more than 400 reported cases.
It has been determined during the investigation that the victims all used their credit or debit cards at either Bashas’, AJ’s Fine Foods or Food City locations to make purchases.
The fraudulent charges to victims’ accounts are occurring in Arizona, Texas, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, North Carolina, Italy, France, Canada and Mexico.
PCSO has been working with federal, state and city law enforcement agencies on this case as it has become international. The FBI has taken the lead in the investigation.
The Bashas’ Family of Stores has cooperated with investigators. The store became the victim of a cyber attack beginning in June or July by suspects able to gain access to parts of the security system used to capture payment information from customers.
The sophisticated piece of malware software has been identified and contained. Bashas’ will be posting information related to this security breach at all of their stores to notify customers.
