Police said since May 25, they received numerous reports of incidents of wallets or purses being taken from shopping carts while the victims were shopping.

Lacey detectives obtained surveillance video at a store from June 19. Two women were seen on the footage stealing a wallet from a shopper’s purse.

On Thursday, police said a woman came to the Lacey Police Department to report her wallet had just been stolen from a local supermarket a few minutes previously.

While a detective responded at the store and reviewed video surveillance, Lacey officers searched several supermarket parking lots looking for a vehicle which had been identified on previous surveillance footage, police said.

After reviewing the video footage, the detective identified a vehicle used in the recent theft, notified the searching officers, and the vehicle was immediately found in the parking lot of another supermarket, officers said.

Investigators said undercover officers went into the business and saw one of the women suspected in the thefts. They said she quickly left the store and got into a vehicle.

Officers pulled the woman over in a traffic stop a short distance away.

A second woman was found and arrested inside the same business. Police said an investigation determined the women had been in the process of committing wallet thefts before officers arrived, and police found discarded evidence outside the business.

Both women were booked into the Thurston County Jail for investigation of second-degree theft.

The women, 28-year-old Paige Popple and 57-year-old Brigitte Olson, are both residents of Lacey.