An alert store clerk at Best Buy helped lead Bowling Green police to the arrest of a woman who claimed to be working in this area with a group from Chicago to open fraudulent credit accounts using stolen identities.

On Dec. 19, the Bowling Green Police Department was called to the store on Campbell Lane after a woman opened an account using a phony Florida driver’s license. A clerk who had been processing the woman’s credit application noticed that when the woman was asked for personal identification information, such as her birthday, the woman had to look at her iPhone before providing the clerk with an answer, according to city police records.

The clerk became suspicious and notified her supervisor, who called Best Buy’s credit approving agency, HSBC. HSBC representatives tracked down the Florida woman whose name was being used to open the account. The Florida woman confirmed that she was not inside the local Best Buy, records show.

After brief foot pursuit that evening in the area near Best Buy, police arrested Talicia McNeal, 28, of Chicago, and charged her with criminal possession of a forged instrument, tampering with physical evidence, second-degree disorderly conduct and theft of identity without consent. Her combined bond on those charges is $50,000, according to online jail records.

Bowling Green police also charged McNeal as a fugitive wanted in Illinois on forgery charges, according to BGPD spokesman Officer Ronnie Ward. She is being held without bond on the fugitive charge.

McNeal told police that numerous people from Chicago were in the area attempting to open accounts using stolen identities. She declined to provide police with any names, citing fear of retribution, according to police records.

McNeal told police that someone in Chicago provided a group of about 20 people with the fake ID cards, fake credit cards and stolen personal identification information, which were to be used to apply for store credit, Ward said.

The people involved would then go to a store, apply for credit and buy several items on the newly opened fraudulent accounts. The perpetrators would return the items to the store, ask that a refund be applied to a Best Buy gift card, then transfer the money from the gift cards to a prepaid Visa or MasterCard debit card, creating untraceable money that could be used anywhere those credit cards are accepted, including ATMs.

Bowling Green police do not know if all 20 of the people involved in the apparent scheme came to Bowling Green.

BGPD has contacted the U.S. Secret Service, the federal agency that investigates counterfeiting and identity theft. City police are also working with law enforcement agencies in other jurisdictions in Kentucky and in other states, Ward said. The case remains under investigation.

While McNeal was inside the store, Best Buy employees attempted to stall her and called police. McNeal figured out that employees had called police and ran off, Ward said.

When Officer Jeremy Abell arrived at the store, he saw a woman who was later identified as McNeal running across Campbell Lane toward a nearby car dealership. Best Buy employees were flagging down Abell and pointing at the woman. The woman saw the police cruiser, jumped a guardrail and ran to a drainage area. Abell yelled for the woman to stop. As he got closer to the woman, she threw down her cellphone and quit running. Police were unable to locate her cellphone.

McNeal consented to a search of her purse, where police found several gift cards and a counterfeit Chase credit card in the name of the Florida woman. McNeal was not staying in the area. She had been dropped off at the store.