Posted on 06/26/2012 1:29:51 AM PDT by rawhide
Thieves beat security in New York shoe stores by stealing left sneaker from one store... and then right sneaker from another store
Sneakers thieves in New York City have found a new way to get around security measures in stores.
Crooks have worked out that they can steal a left shoe from one store and the right from another.
They do their research: sussing out which shops habitually stock one shoe side or the other.
'They go to Foot Locker, which has all right-sided shoes. Then they come here because we display left-sided shoes,' Salissou Mohamam, 40, manager of SoHo sneaker store Michael K, told the New York Post.
Mr Mohamam estimates he loses about 50 display shoes a year to the thieves - amounting to over $17,500 a year for shoes that cost several hundreds of dollars for a pair.
'They know before they steal which stores are selling which styles and sizes, left and right. They calculate before they come in,' said Jennifer Lee, 52, owner of the Sneaker Box in The Bronx.
Abbas Diallo, who owns sneaker and sportswear shop Diallo Cap in Harlem, said he first discovered the ploy in January when he caught a man in his 40s attempting to make off with a right-side $350 Penny Hardaway Nike Foamposite.
'I wasn't paying attention. At first, I asked myself why would someone steal one shoe. Now I know,' he told the newspaper.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
If the shoe fits...
I have to give the thieves credit for being ingenious.
So a person stealing one pair of shoes total has cost the stores 2 pairs of shoes total? Each store ends up with one shoe and can’t sell a pair unless they want to try to ‘buy’ the other shoe from the other store.
I had the experience (we were having fun actually) of a shoe store in SoHo hunting down a large(ish) boot for my daughter. They were able to come up with that boot!! Unbelievable - thanks for the anecdote!!
But, but, but — display shoes are always very small sizes.
Then they could actually afford to buy the sneakers...
‘Hey man! Lemme see your new kicks! Wow! Nike! Check those colors and highlights out!’
‘Yeah, they’re sweet aren’t they?’
‘What are you going to do now that you stole ‘em? ‘
‘Dunno. Probably go stand on the street corner in a sad, hopeless attempt at eking out a few morsels of admiration from other sad, bone-idle losers like you. Or I might just go home since I don’t have a job.’
‘Cool, man. Probably see you down there.’
For a lot of shoplifters, the “thrill” of getting something for nothing is the motivation, especially with suburban high school kids.
When I was in high school, I knew a kid whose dad was an NYPD detective. The kid loved to go to Rockaway Beach and steal sneakers from beach blankets. He had a couple of dozen sneakers under his bed, and his father the detective, never suspected anything. (Sure.) I was in Macy’s with him once and he stole an address book from the stationery section, not because he wanted an address book, but because he wanted to steal.
There is something to be said for stocks and public floggings.
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