A customer at Walmart alleged that her phone had been stolen and exchanged for money at the store before video footage uncovered the deception.
Unbeknownst to the woman, the whole incident was captured on camera as the iPhone was traded in for immediate cash at a kiosk.
Tiffany Jean Cotten, 27, contacted the police on December 2, 2023, reporting that her phone had gone missing while she was at Walmart.
She told cops her tracking app showed the phone was located inside an ecoATM machine.
EcoATMs are kiosks inside stores like Walmart where people can trade in their phones for cash.
Cops contacted the company and helped Cotten get her phone back but something didn’t add up.
Aberdeen Police launched a deeper investigation and ended up making an arrest on April 4 – over a year and four months later.
Detectives pulled video surveillance from inside Walmart and the parking lot.
This helped them identify the person who dropped the phone into the ecoATM for cash.
Police discovered Cotten allegedly knew the person who was seen trading in the device.
She’d arrived at the store with them in the same vehicle.
That led cops to accuse Cotten of making false statements in her police report about the phone.
They got a warrant for her arrest a few days after she filed a police report but they couldn’t find her.
Then, on April 4, 2025, a different police agency – Fort Bragg Military Police – finally located her.
She was arrested and turned over to the Fayetteville Police Department.
The bizarre stunt unfolded in Aberdeen, a town in Moore County, North Carolina, about two hours from Charlotte.
Cotten was hit with two charges, felony aid and abet and filing a false police report, which is a misdemeanor.
Walmart shoplifting arrests
- Ashley Cross was caught on security cameras using an old watch battery barcode to scan expensive products for just $1
- Ex-officer Mark Leenerts stole $317.88 worth of merchandise from Walmart stores in Topeka, Kansas
- Jeremiah Boyer raked in $52,800 in fees on 874 orders while working for Walmart’s online delivery service Spark
- Brent Adam Brooks, of Sylva, North Carolina, was arrested after trying to steal a $198 Frigidaire ice maker
- Kabreshia Caldwell targeted innocent senior citizen customers at Walmart stores across Northeast Florida, stealing a total of $10,000
- Katherine Gordon allegedly stole $80 worth of groceries by replacing barcodes on certain produce items
She was booked at jail and given a $5,000 bond by a magistrate.
“Officers were able to track down the truth through camera footage and interviews,” the department said in a release.
It comes after another Walmart shopper, Speedy Gonzalez, 40, was arrested for allegedly stealing $20,000 from the retail chain.
Gonzalez stole at least 20 times by exploiting Walmart’s self-checkout system, cops said.
His streak came to a halt in March when surveillance footage allegedly showed him stuffing items into a trash can.
The video led police to identify him, and just 10 days later, they arrested him at the same store.
