Two St. Petersburg men are accused of turning routine shopping trips into a rolling theft operation across multiple Florida counties, with state investigators tying them to more than 150 incidents and roughly $370,000 in stolen merchandise. Both suspects are facing organized retail theft counts and are being held while statewide prosecutors sift through the case file. According to law-enforcement accounts, the investigation tracks back to August 2023 and was formally opened in December 2023.
Names, charges and agency handling the case
The Organized Retail Crime Squad with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement identified 52-year-old Raydel Amado Gines Prieto and 36-year-old Erisniel Melgarejo Rodriguez, and each is now charged with two counts of organized retail theft. Investigators say the case began when asset-protection teams at a major home-improvement retailer flagged repeated losses that did not add up to ordinary shoplifting. The investigation has been turned over to the Attorney General’s Office of Statewide Prosecution, and FDLE officials say the inquiry remains active as prosecutors prepare formal charges.
How investigators say the pair took goods
According to investigators who spoke with local reporters, the suspects allegedly relied on a grab bag of tactics to walk out with merchandise. Those methods reportedly included under-scanning items at self-checkout kiosks, running fraudulent returns for cash or store credit, and in some cases simply rolling carts of unpaid goods out the door. Asset-protection representatives told the Tampa Free Press they noticed the same playbook popping up at locations across West Florida, a pattern that helped agents link the two men to more than 150 incidents dating back to August 2023. Retail investigators say that kind of repeated method at different stores is a hallmark of organized retail crime cases.
Arrests, custody and next steps
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement reports that Melgarejo Rodriguez was arrested on March 2 by the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and booked into the county jail. Gines Prieto was already in custody on unrelated charges when FDLE agents served their warrants. Both men now face felony organized retail theft counts, and the Office of Statewide Prosecution is expected to handle the criminal cases. Authorities say the investigation is still underway, and warn that additional charges or more defendants could be added as new evidence surfaces.
Where this fits in Florida’s wider crackdown
The arrests land in the middle of Florida’s broader crackdown on organized retail theft. State officials have rolled out a Retail Theft Investigative Special Task Force through the Attorney General’s Office and backed statutory changes that make it easier to combine thefts across different stores and time periods into felony cases. A news release from MyFloridaLegal outlines how the task force is meant to coordinate multi-county cases, while a legislative analysis posted on flsenate.gov explains how aggregation and enhanced retail-theft offenses can elevate repeat or multi-site shoplifting into more serious felonies. Together, those documents show how prosecutors are treating large, coordinated theft patterns as priority targets.
What happens now
The case now moves deeper into the Office of Statewide Prosecution, where attorneys who have been focusing on organized retail theft will review the investigative file and decide how to charge each incident. Local retailers and loss-prevention teams say long-running investigations like this are one of the few tools that reliably slow down repeat crews and help protect employees who are caught in the middle. As the Tampa Free Press reported, the probe is still active, and authorities are urging anyone with additional information to contact investigators as the case continues to unfold.
