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CINCINNATI (WCPO) — Employees of a Colerain Township convenience store paid people to steal baby formula so they could ship it across the country and resell it, federal authorities said.
Authorities arrested three Butler County men: Khalil Yacub, 44, Khalil Jaghama and Jasser Saleh, 41, Thursday morning in connection to the conspiracy. Yacub’s family owns the Pit Stop on Galbraith Road, according to an affidavit.
Yacub, Jaghama and Saleh paid “individuals (often drug addicts)” to work as “boosters” to steal the baby formula, federal officials said. The three men would take a photo of the sellers’ ID to prevent them from contacting police. The defendants also used a handgun and stun guns to control the sellers.
Federal officials estimated the defendants stored and shipped hundreds of cans of baby formula for resale across the country from 2017 to 2019. On June 30, one woman brought 40 cans of baby formula to the Pit Stop to be sold. The sellers, for example, might sell “cans of stolen baby formula to the Pit Stop for $5 per can,” authorities said.
The suspects used a storage facility to warehouse the stolen formula. A GPS monitor placed on a can of Enfamil showed that the formula was transported to the West Coast.
Besides raiding the pit Stop Thursday morning, FBI agents also searched a Liberty Township home in connection to the investigation, according to the Journal-News.
Yacub, Jaghama and Saleh stand charged with conspiring to transport, transporting stolen goods and unlawful possession of a means of identification. If convicted on all charges, they could face up to 20 years in prison.
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