League City police crack multi-city card scam

Credit-card fraud usually sounds abstract — numbers on a statement, a bank alert, a headache. But this case was much more physical than that. Investigators around the Houston area say one man turned gym locker rooms into the front end of a fraud pipeline, then quickly used stolen cards at H‑E‑B stores before victims even knew anything was gone. The new development is the arrest: Pearland police say 30-year-old Houston resident Azeez Aweda is now in jail after a seven-month, multi-city investigation that also involved League City police. ### How did the scam allegedly work? Police say the pattern was simple and repeatable. Victims would go to a gym — mainly LA Fitness or EOS Fitness locations in Pearland or Houston — leave belongings in a locker, and later discover wallets or cards missing. Then unauthorized purchases would show up, often at H‑E‑B. That speed matters, because the whole trick depends on using the cards before the cardholder freezes them. (fox26houston.com) ### Why target gyms? Gyms are useful to thieves for a boring reason — people are distracted. They move between workout areas, showers, and locker rooms, and many assume a locker gives enough protection for a short visit. If someone can get into that locker fast, the victim may not notice until the workout is over. That gives the thief a clean window to start spending. This is basically the same logic as a porch pirate grabbing a package before the homeowner gets home. (fox26houston.com) ### What made this case stand out? Investigators say the suspect did more than just swipe cards and shop. They linked Aweda to repeated offenses across Pearland, League City, Spring, Pasadena, Webster, and Houston, and say he used disguises while making purchases — clothing changes, masks, and even a fake limp. That detail matters because it suggests planning, not random opportunistic theft. Police also say the charge filed involves fraudulent use or possession of credit or debit card information involving 10 or more but fewer than 50 items. (fox26houston.com) ### What did police actually recover? The clearest number in the case is 24. Reporting tied to the investigation says officers recovered 24 credit cards connected to nine victims. League City officers, during a related traffic stop, reportedly found stolen credit and gift cards, mail, bolt cutters, and a magnetic-stripe card reader. Even without a giant dollar figure, that haul helps explain why multiple departments treated this as a regional fraud operation instead of a string of isolated thefts. (fox26houston.com) ### Why was League City involved? Because the spending and evidence trail crossed city lines. Pearland police led the case, but surveillance footage and transaction records allegedly tied the same suspect to stores and incidents in several jurisdictions, including League City. That’s the kind of case local departments have to stitch together manually — one theft here, one purchase there, one traffic stop somewhere else — until the pattern becomes obvious. (khou.com) ### Could there be more victims? Yes — and police are saying that out loud. Pearland investigators are asking anyone who used LA Fitness or EOS Fitness locations in Pearland or Houston between October 2025 and April 2026, then noticed unauthorized H‑E‑B purchases, to contact them. That usually means investigators think the known cases are only part of the full count. (fox26houston.com) ### What should people take from this? The practical lesson is not just “watch your card.” It’s that the vulnerable moment may be before the card is ever used online. In this case, police say the weak point was the locker room, and the spending came afterward. So the real defense is layered — don’t leave a wallet in a gym locker if you can avoid it, lock cards immediately if anything goes missing, and treat a weird grocery charge as a clue, not a one-off glitch. (khou.com) ### Bottom line This wasn’t a hacker-at-a-keyboard story. It was old-school theft paired with fast retail fraud, spread across several Houston-area cities. The arrest matters because it may stop the pattern — but the investigation is still partly about finding everyone who got caught in it. (fox26houston.com)