Pair Sentenced in 11-State $362K Walmart Theft

December 3, 2022, Canton police were called to the Walmart on Riverstone Parkway. Security footage from around 7:30 a.m. showed two men clearing electronics from the display cases. About $15,000 in merchandise came off those displays and left the building. Hours later the same two suspects, still driving the same rental car, appeared at the East Ellijay Walmart and were seen during another theft. Officers secured George Mayo at the store. Anthony Belser ran before they could hold him.

Investigators found that the pair relied on one consistent method and returned to it at stop after stop. High-value goods were concealed inside larger products such as laundry baskets. Once concealed, the merchandise was transferred into emptied retail boxes. The boxes were sealed. At the checkout counter the pair paid only for the lower-priced item. Payment matched the cheap box on the outside. The valuable goods rode out free on the inside.

The practice stretched across a full ten-month span, from August 2022 through June 2023. In that window the same steps were used against Walmart stores in Georgia, Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The merchandise taken from those stores totaled $362,844. Laundry baskets handled the concealment. Emptied boxes handled the exit past the registers. A lower-priced payment closed each visit.

“What initially appeared to be a single shoplifting incident ultimately exposed a larger criminal operation,” Assistant District Attorney Rachel Murphy of the Gang and Organized Crime Unit said.

Investigators assembled the case from security footage, credit card transactions, bank records, and rental-car contracts. The combined evidence linked the pair to 51 felony shoplifting incidents. Forty-nine of those incidents stood apart from the two Georgia cases already on the record. A Cherokee County grand jury returned an indictment against both men in July 2023.

Anthony Belser was arrested during a traffic stop in New York in January 2024. Investigators identified him as a founding member of the Brooklyn-based Lo-Lifes, a street gang and shoplifting crew. In April 2025 he pleaded guilty to violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act—the state statute that lets prosecutors treat a string of related crimes as one enterprise—and to organized retail theft.

A lookout notice for George Mayo issued in January 2025. He was still free more than a year later. On March 27, 2026, a security officer at Atlantic Station in Atlanta recognized Mayo from a statewide BOLO alert that the Georgia Retailers Organized Crime Alliance had shared with law enforcement agencies and retailers. Atlanta police took him into custody that day. On September 10, 2026, Mayo pleaded guilty to two counts of RICO and to organized retail theft.

Anthony Belser was 56. George Mayo was 52. The convictions rested on Georgia’s RICO Act and on organized retail theft—charges built for a coordinated enterprise rather than a run of separate shoplifting cases. Organized retail crime is professional theft carried out by teams inside retail stores; a person acting alone is generally not considered part of it.

“These defendants repeatedly used the same calculated scheme across multiple states to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise. The collaboration between law enforcement and retail partners was critical to dismantling this criminal enterprise, and we remain committed to working closely with them to combat organized retail crime,” Assistant District Attorney Rachel Murphy said.

“Georgia's RICO Act gives us a powerful tool to hold offenders accountable for the full scope of their criminal conduct, rather than treating each theft as an isolated offense. The sentences imposed in this case reflect the seriousness with which we approach these criminal enterprises, and we will continue to aggressively prosecute organized retail crime in Cherokee County,” District Attorney Susan K. Treadaway said.

Superior Court Judge Tony Baker sentenced Anthony Belser to 25 years, with the first 10 to be served in prison. He sentenced George Mayo to 40 years, with the first 20 to be served in prison. Thirty years must be served between them.

Both men were ordered to pay $328,448 in restitution. Judge Baker barred them from most of Georgia after release, allowing access to only one county. Officials have not detailed which single Georgia county they may still enter once free.

“Organized retail crime continues to be a problem not only in Cherokee County, but across the country,” District Attorney Susan K. Treadaway said.