A cocky shoplifter who brazenly helped himself to clothing before strolling out of stores has been caught by police.
CCTV footage shared by the Met shows a hooded man casually giving staff a thumbs up before pulling a clothes stand and walking off the store with what appears to be a jumper.
In another clip, a man with a bag calmly picks up a cream puffer jacket and exits the store without challenge.
A third video shows a man in a blue beanie grabbing items from shelves in front of what looks like a stunned member of staff. When someone tries to stop him, he simply walks away.
The clips, edited into a compilation with jokey background music, then cut to police bodycam footage showing officers arresting a man. It’s not clear if he appears in all the shoplifting clips.
He’s seen being pinned to the ground and cuffed as an officer tells him he’s being arrested for being recalled to prison.
One policeman holds up a pair of trousers and says: ‘That’s got a label on it,’ while another adds: ‘This is nicked as well.’
It comes as shoplifting continues to soar across the capital, even in its most iconic cultural hotspots.
Over the past week in the West End, a board game thief was caught 10 minutes after stealing as part of a £1,300 crime spree, while a masked gang was cuffed moments after stealing £100,000 of Apple products from a phone shop.
And a rampant thief who stole £9,000 from stores in Covent Garden throughout February and March was caught by bobbies on the beat last month.
The shoplifting crisis has seemed to reach boiling point in the West End as the Metropolitan Police has been forced to take action in a bid to contain the shameless thefts.
In an attempted crackdown, the number of officers policing the district will increase by more than 50 per cent following a spate of brazen thefts.
Knife crime and theft are at record levels in the city – and the force has faced accusations of failing to take the challenge seriously or to be tackling it head-on, all while trying to manage with an ever–shrinking budget.
Board game thief Omar Innis, 32, was spotted by West End district coppers carrying a large number of board games and toys on July 25.
Officers had been speaking to shop owners in the area, who had informed them that board game thefts had been on the rise.
Innis was ‘acting suspiciously’, the Met said – and it emerged he had stolen the games just 10 minutes before.
In fact, it was the seventh time he had struck in a month and a half, nicking £1,300 of goods in total from the same shop in Covent Garden.
The Camden man is now behind bars after pleading guilty to thefts and receiving a 26–week jail sentence.
