The Waterloo Schnucks location may have been part of an areawide security breach reported this week in connection with a rash of credit and debit card thefts across the region.

 The Schnucks corporate office worked with law enforcement agencies and a national forensics firm to help investigate the situation, which apparently affected customers of many Schnucks stores throughout the St. Louis area. 

 Multiple residents of Monroe County commented on the Republic-Times Facebook page that their accounts had been defrauded of money in states as far away as New Jersey and Nevada after using their credit or debit cards at the Waterloo Schnucks. Two others said unauthorized purchases were made on their accounts from all the way up in Canada.

 The Schnucks corporate office released a statement Saturday morning stating it had detected the issue behind the security breach that illegally recorded customer financial information.

 Schnucks said the computer forensic firm found a computer code that was recording credit and debit card numbers. Schnucks and the forensic firm will now try to figure out how long this problem has existed and exactly which stores were affected.

 The company says it has taken steps to block the code from recording any more information.

 “We have been told by the computer forensics expert that the security enhancements we have implemented in the last 48 hours are designed to block this attack from continuing,” Schnucks Chairman and CEO Scott Schnuck stated in the news release. “Our customers can continue using credit and debit cards at our stores. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers, and we thank each of them for their patience while we worked hard to investigate their concerns.”

Recent customers of Schnucks are urged to check their bank accounts for fraudulent activity.