Fake barcodes and bank statements

How a repeat thief ‘ripped off’ big businesses across country

Arecidivist thief with 79 previous convictions hatched a plan to make her own barcodes in an attempt to steal expensive items from stores including Bunnings, Supercheap Auto and Mitre 10.

Elmira Rafiee removed barcodes from high-end items and replaced them with ones from cheaper goods so she did not have to pay as much. Then, she would go back and return or exchange them for the original price — in one example pocketing nearly $2000.

The experienced con artist’s stealing spree saw her journey the length of the country and cost businesses thousands of dollars.

“You’ve ripped off a lot of people,”

Tauranga District Court Judge Louis Bidois told the 34-year-old when she appeared in court on Monday after earlier pleading guilty to seven counts of obtaining by deception, three of using a document for pecuniary advantage and one of theft.

The charges relate to 11 separate incidents at Supercheap Auto, Bunnings Warehouse and Mitre 10 stores across the country, spanning from November 2020 to March 2021.

Rafiee, also known as Aaliyah, is an experienced con artist, stealing nearly $50,000 from unwitting buyers on Trade Me in 2011 by promising iphones and ipads that didn’t exist. She would buy courier bags so she could provide buyers with tracking numbers, despite never intending on sending a thing.

She was sentenced to 200 hours community work and ordered to pay $48,000 in reparation after that offending.

For her latest offending, Rafiee was deemed to have a high likelihood of reoffending and a pre-sentence report suggested prison was the most suitable sentence.

She was sentenced on Monday to six months’ home detention.

According to the summary of facts, Rafiee’s strategy was to travel to bigbox retail stores and swap out barcodes for ones from cheaper items before making her purchase.

She then travelled to another branch to return the item in full, showing fake bank statements or receipts as proof of purchase. Sometimes, she would print her own barcodes and use those.

The offending began at

Supercheap Auto in Mount Maunganui, where she swapped the barcode from a $249 winch with that of a $1299 winch.

She then went to the nearby Tauranga branch claiming it was faulty, received a refund, using some of the funds to buy a camera system and pocketed the rest.

Three weeks later, Rafiee went to Bunnings Warehouse in Mount Maunganui. There, she used her own printed barcodes on a set of $49 fairy lights, which rung up on the till at $5. But the checkout operator was suspicious, declining to make the sale.

Returning minutes later, she placed a barcode for $245 on a Makita tool worth $1699.

Nearly a fortnight later, Rafiee was in Wellington, where she went to a Bunnings Warehouse in Lyall Bay. She walked out with two nail guns valued at $1599. She later went to the nearby Bunnings branch on Tory St, asking for a refund on the stolen nail guns. The store’s supervisor refused.

Over the following three weeks, Rafiee targeted three Supercheap Auto branches in Mount Maunganui, Tauranga and Hamilton.

She purchased items including another winch worth $1299 — Rafiee paid $5 for it.

On March 23 last year, Rafiee went to Mitre 10 Mega in Henderson where she attempted to return goods worth around $2500 stolen from Bunnings. Staff provided her with a refund, but later realised the store did not stock the returned items.

The next day, Rafiee was in Christchurch where she visited a Mitre 10 Mega in Papanui, using clearance barcodes worth $100 found in one section of the store to purchase $1460 worth of shower-related goods.

Rafiee was sentenced to six months’ home detention and a further six months’ post-release conditions, and ordered to pay $8,356 in reparation.