CRIME WATCH: South Delridge man charged in ‘skip-scanning’ shoplifting from local Safeway stores

A 41-year-old South Delridge resident has pleaded not guilty to a felony charge of second-degree organized retail theft involving grocery stores. According to case documents, Mauricio Garofalo is accused of shoplifting nearly $4,000 from Safeway stores, including Admiral and Roxbury Safeway, between last December and last March, via what’s known as “skip-scanning.” The documents explain that this involves the thief filling their cart with similar item of both high and low prices – bottles of wine, for example – and using the self-checkout to only scan the cheaper items. Prosecutors say Garofalo was identified through an extensive investigation including a Safeway asset-protection specialist and copious amounts of in-store video, as well as loyalty-card numbers; he was arrested last March when she happened to be working at Roxbury Safeway and recognized a shopper as the man she’d been investigating. She called 911; Garofalo was arrested. He was not charged immediately but the investigation continued and the charge has now been filed. According to the court documents, he has no criminal record and works in the financial-services industry. According to court documents provided by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Garofalo was arraigned Monday before King County Superior Court Judge Nelson Lee and remains free on personal recognizance.

MIC July 14, 2026 (11:39 am)

Works in financial services and is stealing off the clock? Work life balance is important folks, don’t take your work home with you.

WSB July 14, 2026 (12:20 pm)

The charging documents note that when he was arrested at Roxbury Safeway in March, he expressed concern about a laptop left in his car that had clients’ information on it.
- DB40 July 14, 2026 (2:15 pm)
  
  Hmn… I wonder if his clients should have their accounts audited, or if his employer might want to investigate his transactions.
Tax Payer July 14, 2026 (1:50 pm)

Maybe he’s on hard times. Those who look rough seem to get a pass when they steal food. But not “normal looking” people?
WS98 July 15, 2026 (1:23 pm)

@MIC, I think you have the wrong profile. LI search returns a local man in financial services with the same name but different spelling (Maurizio vs Mauricio) on the first.
- WSB July 15, 2026 (10:25 pm)
  
  From the charging documents: “Through their own google search of the names above, specifically Maurizio Garafalo she found that he worked for Merrill Lynch.
  
  The photo attached to the Merrill Lynch LinkedIn profile especially stuck out to her, specifically the glasses, clothes, hair and facial features; because the photo of him seen on the Merrill Lynch profile matched the video footage and photographs she had of him via the Safeway cameras.
  Merrill Lynch had his name listed as well on their website. I confirmed this finding when I google searched the same thing and saw the LinkedIn profile of his (Garofalo’s) picture that claims he works/worked at Merrill Lynch and had Maurizio Garafalo attached to the profile.”
  
  (Direct cut and paste from charging document; spelling variations are theirs. The document also says he specifically named that firm at the time of original arrest when expressing concern about clients’ info on laptop in his car.)

Rhonda July 14, 2026 (1:15 pm)

BANK ROBBER: “So, what are you in for?” GAROFALO: “I didn’t scan all of my items at Safeway”

Feet July 14, 2026 (1:31 pm)

As far as I can tell this is just one guy, so what makes it “organized” retail theft?

MacJ July 14, 2026 (3:34 pm)

You should have seen his bagging technique, it was flawless

26er July 14, 2026 (3:53 pm)

Once again someone is let out on “personal recognizance”. Seems to me the judges should be handcuffed.

Robert July 15, 2026 (8:02 am)

Of all the things we need to immediately lock up people for in Seattle, theft of $4k is not one of them. That idiot stealing all that electrical wire off the bridge a couple of weeks ago caused $100k in damages and got let out after a day or two. That is unacceptable.
- Lisa July 16, 2026 (11:54 am)
  
  Great point!!

The Real JP July 14, 2026 (8:12 pm)

“Skip-scanning” LOL. Otherwise known as “theft”.

WSzombie July 14, 2026 (10:56 pm)

I feel like this will be hard to get a conviction on. The difference between incompetence and intent is going to be circumstantial at best. Especially since the biggest accusation of intent is the volume of theft. I’ve seen MANY elderly people spend far too much time struggling with self-checkout. Even the best scanners that work at Safeway miss stuff. But again, the response will be, “but $4,000 is obviously intentional”. Maybe. But trials are about evidence, not opinions. And intent is nearly impossible to prove.

k July 15, 2026 (6:57 am)

When you do the exact same thing more than once it gets a lot easier to prove intent. It’s hard to accidentally ALWAYS scan the cheaper equivalents and never the higher priced ones, and then accidentally do that on multiple occasions, and at two different stores. This case is also very unlikely to go to trial. With those charges, he can easily get the prosecutor to drop it down to a Gross Misdemeanor, minimizing impact on his employment and housing options, in exchange for a guilty plea and some probation.
Robert July 15, 2026 (8:03 am)

You do bring up a really good point about what is an accident vs stealing and how they can prove it. I doubt this guy is innocent, but if he got a good lawyer he could probably fight it pretty hard, costing the store more than $4k.
- Daniel July 15, 2026 (3:08 pm)
  
  Note the cost would probably not be mostly on the store in this case. Since it’s a criminal case, the cost of pursuing it is placed on the taxpayers, as we are the ones who fund the prosecutors. It may still cost Safeway more than $4k in total resources for discovery costs alone, plus any time required for deposition, etc of their employees. But most of the cost would be on the public.
Grocery Vet July 15, 2026 (9:42 am)

I worked at a grocery store years ago and we had a regular who had a similar profile to what I think is described here. They would shop twice a week and usually buy >100 bucks worth of stuff on each trip, but would also steal around 20-30 dollars worth of stuff on each trip. Totally random stuff. I always assumed it was a compulsive behavior, it certainly wasn’t driven by need.

CaptAdmiral July 15, 2026 (9:31 am)

Never mind the masked addicts that come into Admiral Safeway nearly every night and walk out with merchandise untouched. Apparently we only pursue and prosecute the ones with something to lose or who have means to pay.

Lisa July 16, 2026 (12:01 pm)

Excellent point!

Grocery Shopper July 15, 2026 (10:10 am)

This kind of theft wouldn’t exist if Safeway hired an adequate number of checkers. If there were more than 2 checkout stands open at a time, the grocery store could serve more customers and avoid shrinkage like this. It’s hard to believe the stores save money by being understaffed and facilitating this kind of scam. How much time, labor, and money was spent tracking this one person?