MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — An investigation into a fraud scheme at two Home Depot locations in South Florida led to the arrest of a store manager.
Authorities said the suspect, Mauricio Jimenez, conducted at least 4,500 separate unauthorized orders totaling around $55 million worth of merchandise.
According to an arrest form, Jimenez, 48, of Hialeah, worked as a manager at the Home Depot located at 7899 W Flagler St. in west Miami-Dade and previously worked as a manager at the Home Depot located at 13895 W. Okeechobee Road in Hialeah Gardens.
Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office deputies said that Jimenez, over 28 months, “engaged in a deliberate, systematic and ongoing scheme to defraud Home Depot” by “applying unauthorized markdowns to merchandize, significantly reducing retail prices beyond permissible limits.”
According to deputies, the Home Depot Assurance & Advisory Management Program was alerted to orders by Jimenez, prompting an investigation in December.
It was then revealed that Jimenez had several sales in which “highly excessive markdowns” were “conducted to repeated customers,” according to official documents.
Further investigation by Home Depot Central Investigations found that Jimenez only provided the discounts to “a core of accounts” and that the “high markdown activity” at his old store stopped once he left, and “took a dramatic upturn” at his new store once he arrived, according to an arrest form.
Investigators also determined that “the merchandise was of the quantity and nature of that typically purchased by re-seller accounts” and that Jimenez placed and structured the orders in a deceptive way in order to try and conceal his actions.
In addition, deputies said Jimenez was “creating, registering or otherwise utilizing additional business entitles, shell companies or aliases to place orders and receive discounted merchandise,” according to his arrest form.
Authorities said Jimenez was spoken to by a regional vice president and district manager and told “to no longer sell to seven of his affiliated business” while he was “questioned about these types of sales and how they were not to be made,” but authorities said he “continued to conduct said fraudulent transactions after receiving said warnings.”
Of the $55 million in gross sales that Jimenez discounted, authorities said the net sales were around $30 million following markdowns of approximately $24 million, leading to a negative sales margin for Home Depot of $4.3 million.
According to an arrest form, “not only was no money made on these sales, but it cost the Home Depot over $4 million dollars to sell to these accounts.”
Jimenez was taken into custody on Tuesday at the Home Depot location on Flagler Street in Miami.
He is facing charges of organized fraud of $50,000 or more and first-degree grand theft.
As of Wednesday morning, Jimenez was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on a $15,000 bond.
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