Man sentenced for scheme that cost Meijer $800K

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A man involved in a long-running organized retail scheme that cost Meijer stores hundreds of thousands of dollars was sentenced.

Travis Gale, 31, was sentenced in 17th Circuit Court Wednesday to three to 20 years in prison for conducting a criminal enterprise.

“This particular incident occurred over a period of years where you and several co-defendants decided to engage in a scheme that involved coupon and gift card fraud from Meijer, which resulted in thousands and thousands of dollars lost,’’ Kent County Circuit Court Judge Christina Elmore said during Wednesday’s sentencing hearing.

The judge also called for a restitution hearing to determine how much Gale and his co-defendants will have to pay.

According to court records, in early 2022, Meijer discovered a loss of $805,000 due to counterfeit coupon barcodes. While investigators say the scheme dates back to at least 2018, court records show Meijer lost $134,000 in Michigan in less than two months in early 2022 alone,

Gale was among several individuals who faced charges in connection to the criminal enterprise. Many of them are either married, related or known associates of one another, police said.

The documents filed in Gale’s case show that transaction data and surveillance cameras revealed he used the fraudulent barcodes at the Meijer on Century Center Street in Grandville and the one on Wilson Avenue NW in Walker. When detectives searched Gale’s home, they say they found Visa and MasterCard gift cards that were fraudulently obtained from Meijer.

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