Traders in our country cannot deal with the thieves in the malls. Hundreds of thefts are registered every week, and only on the territory of Sofia, NOVA reported.
If you've been shopping recently, there's a good chance that the stranger next to you is a thief. Anna Nikolova is the manager of a large chain of sports stores. She has seen it all and few things can surprise her. “Well-dressed gentlemen, mothers with prams, entire families, together with children. The grandmother with the child. We have had all kinds of thieves," she explained. “What we have noticed on the security cameras is how they take their clothes, fold them, put them in the bag, with the hanger and the chips, and start browsing the store as calmly as possible”, explained store manager Vasil Mironov.
The more advanced are informed by social networks, where they demonstrate the skills of how to shop without paying with materials at hand such as a fork or a hook. Alarms can be magnetically removed from items in just seconds. This happens most often in trials.
The police have even caught organized crime groups with several sacks of clothes. According to the plan, they were supposed to sell them, most often on the Internet and even offered personal delivery of the goods. Three of them have been neutralized in two years. In the first 4 months of this year alone, the police detected 1,435 thefts. Of these, 1,211 have been disclosed. However, the sentences issued can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
„We have 50-60 people detained immediately after the theft”, commented Vitali Tsvetkov, head of the group in the “Street crime” sector. Anna claims that the growth of losses for one year in her store equals 50% or BGN 100,000. That's why he sounded the alarm: “I am turning to the parents. To explain to children that stealing is not a good thing and can have serious consequences, she said.