A man who repeatedly stole from an unmanned store 18 times over the course of a month has been arrested.
The Guro Police Station in Seoul arrested a suspect, identified only as A, on charges of habitual theft from an unmanned store, the Korean National Police Agency announced Friday on its YouTube channel.
Police said A entered an unmanned ice cream discount store in Guro-gu, Seoul, in April with both arms full of products. He walked to the checkout counter and waved each item in front of the kiosk as if scanning the barcodes, without completing any payment, before walking out with the goods.
A visited the store roughly every other day, repeating the same "scan-and-skip" scheme a total of 18 times over about a month.
After receiving a report from the store owner, police reviewed in-store CCTV footage to trace A's movements and identify his home address.
The key to cracking the case was a pair of blue slippers the suspect wore to every theft. Detectives conducting door-to-door inquiries noticed he had worn the same slippers each time and spotted A wearing them while tracking his movements, leading to his arrest just one day after the theft was reported.
choigo@heraldcorp.com
