The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office has charged three people in a scheme to regularly steal merchandise from The Home Depot in Venice and return it for store credit.

On at least eight occasions members of the group entered the store with stolen merchandise or took items off the shelf and went to the service desk to “return” them. Each time the suspect would receive store credit on a gift card and then would sell the card to a pawn shop. The trio was responsible for at least $1,533 worth of fraudulent returns.