An Ari­ma man was duped out of over $25,000 in cash by a man who pre­tend­ed to be em­ployed at a pop­u­lar gro­cery and promised him an em­ploy­ee dis­count to se­cure a “good deal” on al­co­hol for the hol­i­days.

The 59-year-old, of Christi­na Gar­dens at O’Meara Road, ad­mit­ted know­ing the sus­pect on­ly by the name “An­i­mal.”

The vic­tim told po­lice he met the sus­pect around 12.39 pm on Mon­day at Maraj West Side Su­per­mar­ket at the cor­ner of King and Lopez Streets in Ari­ma.

Be­liev­ing the sus­pect to be an em­ploy­ee of the es­tab­lish­ment, who would have been able to ben­e­fit from the pur­chase of al­co­holic drinks at a dis­count­ed price, the vic­tim hand­ed over $26,400 in cash and was hand­ed a fake in­voice.

It was al­leged that when the vic­tim went to col­lect the al­co­hol, he was in­formed by oth­er peo­ple at the gro­cery that the sus­pect was not em­ployed there.

Sev­er­al at­tempts by the vic­tim to lo­cate the sus­pect have since proven fu­tile.