Thieves who snagged debit card numbers from a local gas station a year ago used them this past weekend to steal money from dozens of people's bank accounts.

These crooks were busy over the long Labor Day weekend, using debit card numbers they'd stolen from people who filled up at an ARCO station in Puyallup from mid-August to mid-September of last year.

More than 50 people have filed theft reports with the Puyallup Police Department. Most of the stolen account numbers were used to withdraw money from ATM machines in California and Texas with the damage totaling more than $100,000 and counting.

"We expect that to go higher as the days go on and more transactions are posted," said Puyallup Police Sgt. Ryan Portmann.

The ARCO station at 1502 South Meridian is not far from from another ARCO station at 11608 Meridian Avenue East where some 125 other debit card numbers were swiped during the same time period. In that case, the losses topped a half million dollars.

Portmann says the two cases appear to be related.

"It sounds like they had placed skimming machines on both of those stations, at around the same time and again they held the numbers until a 3-day weekend to run the numbers in California and Texas," he said.