Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Business shoplifter busted

by Rachael Kimola CASTANET:
An Okanagan woman has been arrested for shoplifting over the weekend after she was caught with close to $1,000 worth of stolen merchandise in her vehicle. Vernon RCMP spokesperson, Gord Molendyk, says the 39-year-old woman was pulled over at the corner of 40th Avenue in Vernon Saturday evening after an officer noticed she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. “The woman was checked and she also failed to produce a driver's license. The officer then noticed that there was a lot of clothing items in the car with price tags on them. They were just tossed in the back, not the normal way you’d have items you’d just bought,” says Molendyk. He says the officer also found the woman’s “shopping list.”

“She had a list of items that various people wanted. How it would work is they’d tell the woman what they wanted, she’d go out and steal it and then either sell it back to them cheaper than the retail cost or trade it for drugs.” Molendyk says the items were mostly everyday items, such as underwear and shoes. “At this point in the investigation, we don’t believe the woman was working alone. When officers went to talk to the businesses the items had been stolen from, the owners were saying they had noticed a couple of people who had kept them busy but didn’t buy anything.” The woman, believed to be a Kelowna resident, had recently been released from jail on shoplifting charges. Charges are pending for the current shoplifting. The stolen items have been returned to the businesses.

No comments: