Law enforcement authorities in the Tallahassee, Florida area arrested three men and charged them with using card numbers stolen in the Heartland Payment Systems data breach to commit credit card fraud at local Wal-Mart stores.

But law enforcement officials working close to the case said it was unlikely that the three were responsible for hacking Heartland's systems. It is more likely that they purchased the card numbers to use in their scheme, said an official who would not comment for the record.

The arrest appears to bring two previously unrelated stories together, the rise of thieves using various gift cards as fraud vehicles and the Heartland data breach. In this case, the police allege the three encoded stolen card numbers onto Visa branded gift cards that they then used at Wal-Mart stores.