(The Center Square) – A 22-year-old Grand Haven man has been arrested and arraigned for allegedly stealing and selling account access information tied to “mPerks” accounts.
Nicholas Mui was arraigned in the 59th District Court in Kent County on Dec. 27 for conducting a criminal enterprise, a 20-year felony, using a computer to commit a crime, a 20-year felony, and seven counts of identity theft, each count a 5-year felony.
mPerks is the loyalty and rewards incentive program offered by the Meijer grocery chain wherein customers accrue store credit points by making purchases at the grocer.
The points accrued can be used as cash value towards purchases.
Meijer’s customers’ loyalty program points were compromised in a data breach and obtained by Mui from a separate data breach and sold to third parties who used the points balance to fund their purchases from Meijer online and in-store.
Law enforcement believes Mui obtained the information via “credential stuffing,” whereby large-scale account credentials are batched and sold.
“Consumers should heed this warning and exercise smart password discipline,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement. “If you are notified of a data breach, you should be changing your login credentials not just with that breach point platform, but also for any other accounts for which you use the same login credentials. Additionally, consumers should be changing their passwords at regular intervals, and not employing the same usernames and passwords across multiple platforms.”
Meijer discovered the theft in April. In September, a search warrant was executed and more than $400,000 in cash and cryptocurrency were seized in connection to this alleged operation.
Meijer has reinstated the full previous balance of accrued points to affected customers suffering verified thefts, at a corporate loss currently calculated to exceed $1 million.
“This theft operation affected hundreds of Meijer customers and mPerks account holders, and cost the grocery chain over one million dollars,” Nessel said. “It is our belief we apprehended the main operative and driver of this sophisticated, wide-spread criminal enterprise and I’m grateful for the partnership between my FORCE Team, the Michigan State Police, and Meijer.”
Mui will next appear before the 59th District Court on Tuesday for a probable cause conference.
