A 22-year-old Grand Haven man is facing felony charges in connection with the theft and sale of account access to Meijer “mPerks” accounts.
Nicholas Mui was arraigned in the 59th District Court in Kent County on Dec. 27, 2023, on one count of conducting a criminal enterprise, one count of use of a computer to commit a crime, and seven counts of identity theft. The first two charges are each 20-year felonies. The identity theft charges are each 5-year felonies.
Meijer’s mPerks program is used by customers to accrue store credit on their accounts when they make purchases at Meijer. The points can be used as cash value toward purchases.
Mui is accused of taking mPerks login credentials and selling them online. People then fraudulently redeemed points from the stolen accounts. Investigators believe that Mui got the login credentials from separate data breaches, cross-referenced them with mPerks, and then sold the logins online.
Meijer customers who used the same username and password as what was breached had their accounts sold or offered for sale. It is not believed that Meijer was directly breached.
“Consumers should heed this warning and exercise smart password discipline,” said Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. “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.”
Customers who had points stolen alerted Meijer about the theft in April and May of 2023. Meijer contacted Michigan State Police. A joint investigation was launched involving Meijer corporate investigators, the Michigan State Police Fraud Investigation Section, and the FORCE Team.
In September, investigators executed a search warrant and found more than $400,000 in cash and cryptocurrency in connection to this investigation.
Meijer has reinstated the balance of points that were stolen from customers. Officials said Meijer is believed to have lost more than $1,000,000 total.
“This theft operation affected hundreds of Meijer customers and mPerks account holders, and cost the grocery chain over one million dollars,” said Nessel. “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 be in court again on Jan. 9 for a probable cause conference.