When expensive products in my store started disappearing in a strange way, I thought the employees were stealing: but after rewatching the surveillance footage, I was horrified 😳😳
I treated this little store like my own home — every shelf, every box, every package of goods I knew by heart, so when expensive products began to disappear, at first I thought it was an accident, then — that one of the employees was stealing, because only the workers had convenient access to the storage and could quietly switch boxes around.
I asked them directly, in the staff room, forcing a smile so as not to ruin the mood of people who had been with me for years, but in response there were only confused looks and assurances that they were not involved; it was hurtful and humiliating, because the most expensive items were always disappearing — out of ten types of cheese the thief always chose the most expensive and elite one, out of ten packs of coffee — the best and most expensive one.
My patience snapped, and I gathered all the surveillance footage from several weeks, printed screenshots and brought them to the police — I thought: let the professionals sort it out, let them find the thief and return my goods or at least put behind bars the one who so brazenly takes what’s not theirs.
But when the police rewatched the footage, we all together in the security office saw something none of us expected and what turned out to be much worse than an ordinary theft. 😳😳 Continuation in the first comment 👇👇
In the footage, among ordinary customers, a woman in a wheelchair consistently appeared, slowly moving between the shelves, smiling at the staff and receiving sympathetic looks from people; she asked for help to reach items from the top shelf, thanked them, sometimes joked while talking to the cashier, and no one paid attention to her wheelchair as a place for a secret storage.
In the video you can see how she carefully puts the most expensive cheeses, the finest packs of coffee into the basket of the wheelchair, then skillfully hides them under a blanket or in a bag, sometimes distracting the seller by asking to check a price or call the manager, and to everyone passing by, it seemed inappropriate to look closely and check — after all, in front of them was a sick woman who was supposed to be helped and pitied.
The bitterest part — it turned out she was not disabled: by her movements and by the footage showing her calmly leaving the store without the wheelchair, it became clear that it was a well-planned trick.
The police promised to act carefully: they knew that accusing someone of pretending to be disabled and stealing causes public outrage, and before taking action, they began gathering evidence, documenting repeating frames and looking for witnesses.
