Two New York residents were arrested in Connecticut on Sunday after police said Costco employees reported an attempted credit card fraud scheme that appeared to stretch across two stores. South Windsor police said 35-year-old Brittany Howard of the Bronx and 34-year-old Kasheem Williams of Brooklyn were taken into custody after officers responded to the Costco on Tamarack Avenue.
The call came in around 3:53 p.m. Sunday, after employees reported suspicious activity at self-checkout. By then, workers had already told officers the same two suspects had just tried similar activity at a Costco in Enfield. That detail turned a retail theft complaint into something larger: a case police described as involving payment cards rather than a single disputed transaction.
Officers said they found 28 credit cards with different names in the suspects’ vehicle, along with items believed to have been stolen from the Enfield store. Howard and Williams were charged with second-degree larceny, 28 counts of payment card theft, third-degree identity theft and conspiracy to commit third-degree identity theft. Police also said both had extraditable warrants from other states, including a Hudson County, New Jersey, warrant for Howard on a credit card theft charge and a Suffolk County, New York, warrant for Williams on charges including burglary, strangulation and assault.
What police did not say matters, too. The account did not say whether any cardholders had already reported fraudulent charges tied to the 28 cards, and it did not explain how the cards were obtained or whether they were counterfeit, stolen or cloned. That leaves the arrest focused on attempted use at the register, not on any completed charges, even as the size of the haul points to a broader alleged scheme.
Howard and Williams were held on $250,000 surety bonds and were scheduled to appear in Manchester Superior Court on Monday. For people trying to understand the risk after a card is lost or misused, the Federal Trade Commission says to report it quickly and watch account activity closely; it also says liability for unauthorized credit-card charges is limited to $50, while protection for debit cards can depend on how fast the loss is reported.
