Why? well for this very reason. We were 'hit' in several of the stores by 'foreigners' who came in and shopped - they never bought anything but invariably engaged the sales staff in a converstation. During the conversation they would advise that they were 'new' in the country - hold up something that looked like a 'bank wallet that was very fat with travellers cheques' and say that they had never 'seen' SA currency and then ask to look at a cross section of the notes. Money was always missing once they had 'looked' and it was clear that the 'shopping' was done while they waited for other shoppers to leave. One of them always 'asked' the price of something as the money was being examined - but one thing always remained the same - money went missing. Unfortuately it was always only found to be missing at the end of the day cash up and the 'smooth' robbers always sauntered out smiling and promising to return to purchase goods as soon as they had 'changed' their travellers cheques at the bank!
Make it a rule in your business - never, ever, ever take money out of the till for anything other than to give your client change!
Smooth-talking thief walks away with cash
Liz Clarke
November 08 2006 at 04:38AM
Is it magic? Is it hypnosis? Is it the power of suggestion? Whatever persuasive skills are involved, a smooth-talking "foreigner" is robbing shops of thousands of rands in and around Durban - and getting away with it.
Well, maybe not for much longer. His captivating manner and magician's deftness have been captured on closed-circuit television cameras. The footage is being examined by store management and police in the hopes of identifying the eloquent thief and stopping him in his tracks.
The CCTV footage shows a well-dressed man and his female accomplice approaching a till. The man appears to be in conversation with the cashier, pays for his goods and the cashier opens the till and takes out a bundle of notes.
At this point the man leans over and takes the pile of notes from her. Without her noticing he siphons off a portion of the notes and slides them into his wallet. At the same time the woman appears to distract the cashier by waving her arms. The remaining notes are then placed back in the till and the "customers" move off.
In the past few weeks the "well-dressed businessman from Dubai" has hit at least five stores using the same technique. This includes "mesmerising" his victims with a smile and "hypnotic" stare and persuading the till operator to open it and allow him to handle the notes. In some instances he is accompanied by a young child. His latest target was Everfresh fruit and vegetable outlet in Durban North. The store fell prey to his sleight of hand at the weekend, with more than R2 000 in banknotes going missing from one of the tills.
Store manager Zeca Virissimo said he was sceptical when he first heard the story about this "gently spoken" thief. "After all, it's a pretty bizarre story," he said. "My till assistant said at the height of weekend shopping - with plenty of people in the queue - this person simply looked at her, smiled, and asked her to open the till so he could identify a R200 and R100 note." He told her he was opening a jewellery shop in the same centre and needed to describe to his partners in Dubai what the notes looked like. He then took a fistful of notes from her and fanned them out. He put them back and she thought that was that until it was later discovered that R2 000 was missing."Police said an alert would be going out to the community.
This article was originally published on page 4 of Pretoria News on November 08, 2006
This article was originally published on page 4 of Pretoria News on November 08, 2006
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