Children spend while man steals
A man at a New Plymouth electronics store appears to have used two children as a decoy while he stole a drone.
On Wednesday afternoon one man, two women, and two young boys entered Plug N Play Electronics on Gill St just before closing and took off with around $1400 of product.
‘‘They were going between the different aisles, picking stuff up putting it down, asking about inverters and then asking about security cameras and one goes down one aisle, one goes down another. So I felt uncomfortable,’’ owner Jacques Schoeman said.
The kids came in with cash and spent $6 on something from the bargain bin; Schoeman said he wasn’t sure if the adults were the children’s parents and if they’d just been given money before hand to buy something or if the adults had an ulterior motive.
‘‘But it’s sad to use kids if they are aware of it or not,’’ Schoeman said.
The group had come in two cars and parked next door to the shop.
Inside the store it is obvious multiple security cameras are operating. However, the adult male still picked up a boxed drone and promptly make for the door.
‘‘I was looking after the boys down one aisle and the older male was down another aisle. I went to the back to put some paper down and came back and noticed some flyers on the ground which were on top of the drone box so I asked the sales staff member if we had sold it today and she said ‘no’ so we had a quick look and one of the cars had left so I told her to grab the registration of the second car.
‘‘I went back and got the footage and saw that he took it off the shelf, walked out the front, hopped in the car, and the one young boy went with him and they were rushing to get out the door.’’
Schoeman said with thefts like this it’s usually to sell rather than to use.
The store’s security cameras allowed him to get very clear images of the culprits which he posted on a few different groups on Facebook.
‘‘Someone seemed to know about these guys and was able to provide some details which I handed over to the police.’’
The posts gained a lot of heat on social media which led to the thieves coming back just after opening the next day to return their loot.
‘‘The guy and one of the females came back and handed back the drone and a head torch which we didn’t know they stole.
‘‘He apologised and wanted us to remove the post and wanted to know if we had already gone to the police.’’
It was the first time Schoeman had people return the goods they’d stolen.