A Bed Bath & Beyond employee is accused of using returns from online registries to steal more than $10,000 from a West Palm Beach store.
Officers arrested Mandela Matasu, 29, Friday after finding that Matasu fraudulently took money from the store 15 times, court records show.
Surveillance video found many instances of Matasu “pulling out his own debit card, reaching over the counter from the employee side to the customer side, and swiping a card at the customer’s credit card terminal machine,” an officer wrote in an arrest report.
Records state Matasu transferred in June 2017 to be a manager at the Palm Beach Lakes store.
Loss prevention officers were notified about a high number of return percentages from their online registry orders at the West Palm Beach store in December 2017.
At first, the loss prevention officers found returns for a bridal shower went to a debit card belonging to Matasu. Their investigation uncovered a total of $10,545.79 refunded to Matasu since September in 15 transactions.
Matsau allegedly confessed to a loss prevention officer when confronted about the allegations. When a West Palm Beach police officer spoke with Matsau, he reportedly confessed again.
Matasu was released on Jan. 6 from the Palm Beach County Jail on supervised release. He’s facing several grand theft and fraud charges.
Editor's Note: Matasu successfully completed a pretrial diversion program in June 2020 and the charges against him were dismissed.
