Texas police have charged a former Chick-fil-A employee in an alleged fraud scheme that investigators say used catering-sized trays of mac-and-cheese to siphon money back to his own accounts. Grapevine police said the man had been fired a month earlier, then returned to a branch of the fast food chain and went behind the counter before the alleged scheme unfolded.
Police said the suspect, identified in US media as 23-year-old Keyshun Jones, rang up catering portions of mac-and-cheese and refunded the cost to his personal credit cards. Investigators said the refunds totaled $80,000, and police charged him with property theft, money laundering and evading arrest.
The case drew attention because of the scale of the alleged refunds and the way police say they were carried out. The Chick-fil-A catering menu lists a large tray of mac-and-cheese at around $100 depending on location, a price point that helps explain how the losses could add up quickly if the same order was repeatedly reversed. The baked macaroni dish has almost 10,000 calories and features three types of cheese.
Store surveillance footage shared by the Chick-fil-A branch appeared to show the former worker returning to the restaurant and using a register behind the service counter. In the video, the man wore a brown puffer vest, blue jeans and a backwards white cap. Police said they tried to arrest him multiple times before succeeding on 17 April, after a joint operation by the Texas attorney general's Fugitive Task Force and the Fort Worth Police Department.
Records show Jones is now in custody at Green Bay prison in Fort Worth, Texas. What remains unclear is why he was fired a month before the alleged scheme, a gap that matters because it leaves the motive for the alleged Chick-fil-a employee fraud case unresolved even as the criminal charges and custody records are already in place.