Cape Coral Police Arrest TikTok Influencer Marlena Velez for Alleged Shoplifting at Florida Target

A TikTok personality with a substantial following is facing allegations of shoplifting from the same Florida Target store where she was previously accused of a similar transgression. Marlena Velez, a 22-year-old influencer and mother of two who commands a digital audience in excess of 360,000 on TikTok, was taken into custody by the Cape Coral Police on a charge of theft related to an incident on November 20, as reported by NBC Miami.

It appears that during a self-checkout process, Velez swapped the item's actual barcode with a fraudulent one, effectively pilfering merchandise including clothing and household items amounting to approximately $225, the Cape Coral Police noted and one of the officers recognized Velez from a previous encounter also her phone's wallpaper matched the image on her Instagram account and from the past incident, additionally the man with her had a distinctive tattoo which matched one featured in some of her TikTok videos. This incident comes on the heels of an arrest last month for a strikingly similar case on October 30, where Velez had employed the same deceptive barcode method to shoplift roughly $500 worth of goods, according to the police department's account.

Authorities connected Velez to the theft after locating a TikTok video she posted the day of the crime in which she wore the same outfit identified in Target’s security footage—a tan shirt, tan pants, and glasses. Not only did Velez document herself selecting the items in-store, but she also recorded taking them home as per the police's findings, as per WRTV.