10.000th Shoplifter Celebrated!

Before the clip, a quick explanation of how Dutch shoplifting is penalized: the shop reports the crime to the police, they make an appointment so that the shop owner can come by next week, he files paperwork for a couple of minutes and that’s it. Video footage will not be examined, unless you “arrest” the thief yourself. In this case you hold the thief until the police arrives and the thief will get fined 240 Euros and it will be on the thief’s record for a couple of years. If the thief comes back, the same process happens. There is no “3 strikes out” law.

In sum: reporting theft costs a lot of time and money, and even if you catch the thief, the penalty isn’t all that bad. So the odds are they will come back to your store. So what do you do to make sure that shoplifter does NOT return to your store ever again? Watch this:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G8_BbERk8o]

A little translation:

- The girl steals something from a store called Hema, and I can only assume it is worth anything around 10 Euro. (Perhaps it’s make-up). It’s a small Dutch version of Wal-Mart.

- They hold her at the door, and celebrate her with being thief number 10.000 for that store.

- She says: “I didn’t do anything!” and he replies sarcastically: “Of course you didn’t do anything!”

- She walks away from the band, the champagne and the party, and the detectors beep. I guess she did do something. :)