Police are searching for a woman who scammed Girl Scouts selling cookies with fake $100 bills outside a Redondo Beach supermarket last weekend, officers said Thursday.
The woman was captured Sunday on security cameras inside the Vons at 4001 Inglewood Ave. before she went outside and ripped off the scouts, sometime between 6:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., the Redondo Beach Police Department said in a news release.
The troop only realized the bills were counterfeit after the woman made off with $50 worth of cookies and $150 of their money, investigators said.
The scammer initially gave the girls one fake $100 for eight boxes, and got $60 in cash. On her way out from buying groceries in the store she got two more boxes with a second fake bill, and received $90 in cash as change.
Girl Scout are often taken advantage of by thieves who “think we are easy targets,” Tammie Scott, a volunteer service unit manager for the organization in the Los Angeles area, told the Daily Breeze.
Scott said similar incidents have even occurred at the same Vons, and leaders advise troop members not to accept $100 bills.
“We certainly have had our share of counterfeit hundreds,” she said.
Police describe Sunday’s suspect as a white woman in her mid-30s with long, dirty-blond hair standing about 5 feet, 5 inches, tall and weighing around 150 pounds.
She was accompanied by a small dog on a leash, and the scouts believed she was missing several teeth, officials said.
Anyone with information can contact Sgt. Mike Strosnider at 310-379-2477 ext. 2324.