Sunday, February 20, 2011

How The hell Do You Shoplift $5,000,000 From A Grocery Store?

A couple in Portland OR has been arrested for shoplifting $5,000,000 in merchandise.
From NWCN.com: Safeway officials say they have proof that a local couple stole more than $5 million in merchandise from stores in the Portland Metro area over the past several years.
Police arrested Richard Lavern Remington, 52, and Angela Rose Evans, 32, on Tuesday and the couple was arraigned in Multnomah County Circuit Court Wednesday.
The probable cause affidavit showed that Safeway began formally tracking the pair last November after suspicions surfaced they had been shoplifting.
Evans told police that the couple stole mostly common items like shampoos, razors, Rogaine, teeth whiteners, conditioners to batteries, DVDs and CDs, according to the affidavit, which also said that Remington stole DVDs on 22 different dates since November.

http://www.nwcn.com/home/Couple-shoplifted-5-million-from-Portland-Safeway-stores-police-say.html
Further: Safeway security officer Trent Drucker estimates that Remington stole $400,000 a year in merchandise over several years, totaling $5 million over the span of thefts.
On Nov. 19, Safeway security officials placed a tracking device on a van driven by the couple. Whenever the van was driven to a Safeway, surveillance videos were carefully scrutinized.
In the weeks following, Safeway officials created a spreadsheet of locations and thefts, which they presented to Portland police. The couple was arrested outside a Safeway store in Portland's Woodstock neighborhood.

I would suggest to Safeway that they need a better security system and security team. At $400,000 a year, that comes out to almost $7700 a week or over a thousand dollars a day. How many fully loaded shopping baskets does that come to each day? At least 7 or 8. Every day for years. How did they get away with it for so long?
And where did they keep all the stuff? The stuff mentioned in the article isn't easily sold or pawned. It's possible they went to bars and sold the stuff to some booze hounds, but they would need to do that in a lot of bars and they didn't get caught selling anything? Did they give it away? And if they knew the people were stealing from Safeway, why did they wait for them to steal from them 22 times? Why not after say, the 10th time?
This case is just baffling on so many levels.

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