By BEN LUNDIN

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – A group of clever thieves who committed a string of thefts at Wal-Marts around the country will be rolling back operations, following the St. John Sheriff’s arrest of one of the robbers on Wednesday for her part in an electronics theft on Jan. 12.

The group, which includes at least Megan Nicole Ferguson, 24, of 18 Fountain Lake Ct., Blooming, Ill., and one unidenfitied man, allegedly used tampered receipts to walk out of Wal-Marts with a cart-loads of stolen items, according to Maj. Mike Tregre of the St. John Sheriff’s Office.

The thefts include Wal-Marts in Fort Wayne, Ind., Selena, Ohio, Baton Rouge, La. and LaPlace, La. in a span of three days, and loss prevention employees of the Wal-Mart Corporation are investigating surveillance tapes to ascertain if others were robbed, said Tregre.

On Jan. 12, Ferguson and an unidentified man allegedly entered the Wal-Mart on 1616 W. Airline Highway at noon and headed straight towards the electronics section, conducting the theft in the same fashion as their previous operations. Without asking for assistance, Ferguson grabbed a boxed computer, tussled with the heavy equipment and awkwardly set it in a cart.

She passed the check-out counters headed towards the exit, like her previous scams, but on this occasion loss prevention caught her on surveillence. A manager of the store greeted her at the exit and told her to pay for the items. She responded that she already had and handed a fake receipt to the manager, who immediately noticed the paper had a different texture than Wal-Marts standard receipts along with several errors in the print, Tregre said.

Loss prevention held Ferguson and brought her towards the security station, when her accomplice, who was attempting to take a computer a 50-inch flat screen television out of the store, immediately fled from the store, according to Tregre.

She was turned over to the St. John Sheriff’s Office and arrested for shoplifting. Representatives from the LaPlace Wal-Mart issued a corporation wide notification of the theft. The Fort Wayne, Selena and Baton Rouge stores showed Ferguson stealing electronics using the same method and sent photographs of surveillance tape footage to the St. John Sheriff’s Office confirming Ferguson’s identity.

Ferguson was held by the St. John Sheriff’s Office on a $10,000 bond. She may be transferred to other jurisdictions where she committed thefts, but has not been booked in those areas, said Tregre.