Brothers’ £6.5k phone thefts from two stores
TWO brothers targeted Carmarthenshire supermarkets to steal mobile phones worth more than £6,500 in what a judge has described as “professional stealing”.
David and Ionatan Bucenau travelled from their home in Portmouth to Tesco Extra stores in Carmarthen and Llanelli and used cutting equipment to remove the phone handsets from their display shelves.
The pair, of Haslemere Road, pleaded guilty to two theft charges when they appeared at Llanelli Magistrates’ Court via prison video link on Thursday.
David, aged 21, and nineteen-year-old Ionatan had swiped phones worth £3,400 from Llanelli’s Tesco in Trostre on November 1 and the following day took phones amounting to £3,115 from Carmarthen’s Tesco, in Morfa Lane. District Judge Christopher James was concerned the thefts came two months after David Bucenau was convicted of theft in Suffolk and said the pattern pointed to “professional stealing from stores out of their area.”
Prosecutor Sian Vaughan said: “They both entered the Tesco stores in Carmarthen and Llanelli and removed the cord attached to the mobile phones for security.
“The number plate of the vehicle they were in was logged and they were found by police.”
A probation report into the pair stated they were remorseful for their actions.
Defending the pair was Andrew Isaac, who said: “It was not a planned theft, they say they had taken a friend to the Carmarthen area to look at a car and David Bucenau saw the phones and decided to take them. He and his brother accept that the stolen phones were not recovered by the police.”
The court heard David had financial struggles which made him steal the phones.
David Bucenau was jailed for 16 weeks concurrently for each of the thefts, while Ionatan was sent to a young offender institution for a period of 12 weeks for both offences.
They were both told to pay a victim surcharge of £115.