A Pittsburgh man is charged with more than 200 counts of felony identity theft after authorities said he made $100,000 in unauthorized credit card purchases at area Lowe’s and Giant Eagle stores, then sold the merchandise.

Cornelius P. Tucker, 33, of the city’s Hill District neighborhood, assumed the identities of hundreds of people to place the orders, then sold the ill-gotten merchandise through his Facebook page, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said.

Tucker purchased power tools, home security products, groceries and other items that he then resold on his Facebook page, “Pittsburgh Stamps,” according to court records.

Special Agent Ryan Kaylor with the attorney general’s office was already familiar with Tucker, having initially reported him to Monroeville police while working in Lowe’s retail loss prevention office.

“Lowe’s initiated an investigation regarding a series of internet charge-backs at retail locations in Munhall, Monroeville, McCandless and Tarentum,” Kaylor wrote in a criminal complaint. “When a retailer incurs a charge-back, the money associated with a specific transaction is returned to the cardholder through a dispute process with their (bank).”

Lowe’s officials were investigating a series of online orders, involving different names, credit card numbers and addresses, which were all picked up by Tucker, according to court documents. The charge-backs alerted the company that the customers’ whose names were on these transactions had disputed the charges.

Tucker picked up the purchased items from stores in Allegheny, Beaver, Crawford, Washington and Westmoreland counties, investigators said, then sold them at a discount through his Facebook page. Posts on the page also referenced discounted orders through Giant Eagle, appearing to imply a business relationship between the grocer and the Facebook page.

Kaylor said Tucker was running what is referred to as a triangulation fraud scheme.

“It appeared (Tucker) was acting as a middleman, which placed orders on behalf of a customer, directly to a retailer such as Giant Eagle, in which stolen or fraudulently obtained credit card information was utilized to place the orders,” Kaylor wrote in a sworn affidavit.

Tucker would take payments through CashApp. Kaylor confirmed 204 fraudulent orders had been placed between February 2023 and August 2024 resulting in more than $61,000 in charge-back losses incurred by Giant Eagle.

Investigators had been attempting to locate Tucker for quite some time prior to taking him into custody July 3, Sunday said.

“This defendant placed hundreds of online orders, under the names and accounts of unsuspecting victims, then fenced the goods to buyers on Facebook,” Sunday said. “This arrest resulted from a meticulous investigation by our Organized Retail Crime Unit, which would not have been possible without a network of collaborating partners committed to stopping these sophisticated schemes.”

Tucker is in the Allegheny County Jail after failing to post $250,000 bond. He has a preliminary hearing July 14 in Monroeville, and does not have an attorney listed in court papers.

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