Oh, she lowered everything to a penny. >> A 19-year-old Dollar General employee buys $1,500 of merchandise for 67. Not a discount, not a coupon, a code she says used to be taped to the wall, and knowledge of a system nobody thought to lock down until it was already too late. April 19th, 2023. Pahokee, Florida. Officers are dispatched to Dollar General store number 14781 after a report that an employee has been exploiting the self-checkout system, allegedly buying real merchandise for almost nothing using knowledge she picked up simply by working there. A loss prevention representative meets them at the door ready to walk them through what he says he's found. >> Hey, what's going on? How are you? Let me explain to you what's going on. She just left. >> Okay. >> She's wearing black on black with a camouflage hat. So, I'm trying to print it out now right now for you. What she was doing was buying merchandise on the self-checkout. >> Okay. >> Since she knows the numbers, she was changing the price down to a penny. >> How can you tell uh she was doing that? >> We have her on video. It's all on video. >> He pulls the numbers, the kind of paper trail that's supposed to make a case like this simple to prove. >> I'm going to print it out now for you. >> Okay. >> It's $1,500. >> $15 Wait. >> $1,500 difference. >> Difference? >> On everything that she's bought. >> Yeah. Okay. And you said she lowered down a penny? Are you sure it's not a technical uh I mean a glitch in the system? >> No. >> Okay. >> That's the difference that she owes. You want to see how much she paid? She paid a total of $67 for all that. >> The officer isn't ready to take it at face value. Manipulating a price is one story. A glitch in and register is a completely different one. And he wants proof this was deliberate before anyone talks about charges. >> You can see it on video. No, wait. It doesn't show it when she's changing the code of the price. I got her on video buying this merchandise. And as she's buying it, at the end she changes the price. >> Another officer works out what that actually means in practice. That this isn't fumbling with one mislabeled item, but one code typed once, quietly rewriting the price of everything already sitting in the cart. >> So, if you could put in she could act like she normally purchases like 20 things, go in, type in one code, and then adjust the price for everyone? >> Technically, yeah. Technically, yeah. Yes. >> And then comes the detail that turns this from one employee's decision into something closer to a security failure the store created for itself. A code that, by the loss prevention rep's own account, used to just be sitting on a wall in plain sight for anyone working there to memorize. >> No, she has a code. She memorized the code. There used to be a code she told me out here po- posted on the on the wall, but since it's come down. >> According to the loss prevention representative, she admits to using the code when he confronts her directly. He tells officers he intends to press charges and that this isn't even the only case he's been tracking. >> Yep. We lost our butt here. I got two other ones that are doing it, too, but they're not here today. But, they're not even as close as to this. The other one, $78 difference, and the other one was a very small amount. >> Two other employees, he says, smaller numbers and not present that day. What happens to them afterward is never part of the record here. The investigation this footage documents stays focused on one person. The representative describes how he got her to open up in the first place. Not by pushing harder on the numbers, but by setting them aside entirely and asking about her life instead. >> I know you moved from Pahokee down here with your baby. You're by yourself. I know you're struggling. And she nodded her head yes. I said, "So, tell me how did you process it through the self-checkout?" I And she said she used the number. I said, "What number did you use?" And she said there was a number posted on the wall that I was using. >> It doesn't last. Whatever ground he gained talking about her circumstances, it closes back up almost as fast as it opened. She's willing to admit what she did, but not to walk him through exactly how, step-by-step. >> I said, "So, walk me through the procedure." And she said, "Why do I have to walk you through it? I don't want to talk anymore." And And I said, "I'm going to call my ride. I want to leave." I said, "Well, I can't hold you." And that's when she stood up and left. >> Investigators still need to know exactly who she is before any of this becomes an arrest. They pull up the surveillance footage from the day in question and ask a manager on shift to confirm the face. >> Yeah, he told me Yeah, he did ask me her name and I just told him her name. >> So, he came in. You were working that day. You were the manager working. >> Uh-huh. >> And he was looking at the video and he's like, "Hey, who is this?" >> Yeah. >> And you're like >> And I told him my name. >> Okay. And then she she was coming in at that time. She was coming in to work. >> Not at that time. >> That's enough for police to act on. Officers go to her home. >> Gladys? Arelys? Right? >> Yes. >> So, I'm investigating an incident that happened down at a Dollar General. >> Uh-huh. >> Just want to know if you want to give me your side of it. >> So, we can read you your rights cuz it's a criminal investigation. If you don't want to talk to us, that's fine. You don't have to talk to us. >> She's handcuffed at her own door. The officer tries to keep it low-key, lets her grab her shoes first, tells her he'll make the rest of the process as easy as he can. It's a small thing, but it's the same tone he keeps for the whole drive, procedural, almost gentle, explaining each step before it happens, rather than springing it on her. >> Do me this. I'm going to turn around. Put your hands behind your back. Turn around. Put your hands behind your back. >> Can I get my shoes back? >> I will hook you up before we leave, I promise. >> Okay. >> I'll This is going to be about as easy as it possibly can be. I I promise you that. >> On the drive in, he lays out exactly what happens next. The substation, the paperwork, the phone call she'll get once she's booked, and what her rights are before he can ask her anything more about the incident itself. >> But >> Is there a way you can do it when we get there? >> Yeah, I can take you up to our other district. We can go into an into a uh um a room that's base basically just for that. >> What is like something where you talk or something? >> Yeah, it's like I have a camera right here, right? So, I've been recording everything so far. So, we would go into the room, sit down, I talk about, you know, what this is in reference to, but you already you already know, right? What this is in reference to. Okay? And then you could just simply tell me your side of it, and I'll put it in a report. >> Okay. >> But I just before you I just need to read your Miranda rights. It's just about It's just a law, okay? >> That's where the released footage ends. A 19-year-old in the back of a patrol car headed in to be booked over a scheme that store records put at roughly $1,500 in merchandise for $67 in cash. Cases like this one are common enough that loss prevention teams have a name for the category, internal price manipulation, distinct from a customer switching tags or a stranger gaming a scanner. What makes it different is access. An employee doesn't need to trick the system, only to know it better than the customer standing in line behind her. That's also what makes it hard to catch quickly. The transactions look, on paper, like ordinary sales until someone sits down and compares what left the shelf to what actually hit the register. She's charged with grand theft. That's the last confirmed fact in the public record. No court filing, plea, dismissal, or sentence tied to this case has surfaced anywhere publicly since. So, what actually happened to the charge and to her isn't something this video can answer. The two other employees the loss prevention rep mentioned are never named, and nothing about their outcomes is part of the record, either. Whatever the store's internal code system looked like before this case, the footage doesn't say whether it was ever changed afterward.