Man in Fukuoka arrested for shoplifting a 49-inch TV weighing 12 kilos

A 27-inch would have been way easier, but he just got greedy.

Shoplifting has long been an issue in Japan with retail staff going to great lengths to combat it, such as being dragged by cars or covering the entire ceiling with security cameras. And despite all this, the problem not only continues, but appears to be getting bolder as an arrest by Fukuoka Prefectural Police has shown.

On 16 June at a Geo (pronounced gay-oh) electronics store in Onojo City, a 23-year-old man entered shortly before midnight, picked up a packaged 49-inch TV, and just walked out the entrance without paying.

Netizens were both shocked and awed by the pure audacity of the act.

“Lol.”
“They probably don’t even bother to put alarm tags on those huge TVs.”
“Did the guy use a fourth dimensional pocket like Doraemon?”
“How did he ever think this was going to work?”
“What a waste of confidence. He could have gone far with that.”
“This country is becoming a post-apocalyptic wasteland.”
“Oh no, the Geo in Onojo, yo!”
“Is this even technically shoplifting?”

It should come as no surprise that the Geo staff easily saw this man stroll through the front doors with the 65-by-110-centimeter (26-by-43-inch) appliance weighing 12 kilograms (26 pounds). However, the manager proved to be the truly smooth operator in this incident.

Rather than confronting the suspect and risk damaging the 45,800 yen (US$422) set, he simply watched as the man loaded it in his car and made a note of the license plate number. After that, he placed a call to the police who easily caught the suspect just as he arrived at his home in neighboring Nakagawa City.

▼ The model is believed to have been the Greenhouse 49V. The one in the video is a slightly larger 50V, but should still give you a good sense of its size.

Police intercepted him in the parking area of his home with the TV still inside his car. Caught red-handed, the suspect admitted to the theft saying, “I stole it because I wanted to use it at home.”

And he would have gotten away with it too had it not been for those meddling people and their basic human senses of sight and hearing. So let that be a lesson to anyone else considering sneaking out of a place of business with a comically over-sized piece of merchandise: We’re not watching you, but we’ll see you anyway.

Source: Nishinippon Shimbun, Hachima Kiko
Image: Geo

Credit: