Four people suspected in baby formula theft ring

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Four Mexican nationals may have been involved in a shoplifting ring that stole at least $30,000 worth of infant formula from area stores, authorities said. <br/><br/>Diana Savalo,

Saturday, May 28th 2005, 11:14 am

By: News On 6

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ Four Mexican nationals may have been involved in a shoplifting ring that stole at least $30,000 worth of infant formula from area stores, authorities said.

Diana Savalo, 25; Pearla Visnaga, 19; Arsenio Ramirez Tespozotlan, 33, and Oscar Ramirez Topozotlan, 26, could faces charges of concealing stolen property and larceny from a retailer, Assistant District Attorney Ken Stoner said Friday.

The group acquired 1,700 cans of infant formula and kept it in an Oklahoma City storage unit, Stoner alleged. They may have been shipping about 2,000 pounds of formula every two weeks to a distribution point in Kentucky, officials said.

Tom Freeman, state director of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program at the state Health Department, said the formula usually is shipped to a distribution point, repackaged and resold to smaller retailers.

Retailers are asked to produce invoices for products common for WIC clients to make sure they are not buying and selling repackaged formula, Freeman said.

``The first time I heard about it I thought it was crazy,'' Freeman said. ``Who steals baby formula? But, it is a big problem here in the United States.''

Joe Williams, president of Gulf Coast Retailers, chaired the task force on the issue in Texas, where retailers lost $30 million in 2001 from infant formula theft. The amount decreased to $5 million in 2004.

People are recruited along the Mexico border and trained to create a diversion and cart out large quantities of infant formula, Williams said.

The formula is trucked to warehouses, where it is cleaned, redated if it is out of date, recased and then distributed on the black market, he said.

Authorities don't know if proceeds from the rings are going directly to support terrorism, but believe it is reaching terrorist organizations, Williams said.

Foreigners may be selected for the rings because they're likely to be deported rather than prosecuted, but prosecution is still possible, Stoner said.