‘Sweet Tooth Bandit’ steals more than $2,000 worth of candy from convenience store
This crime is more trick than treat.
Police in Garfield Heights, Ohio are looking for a thief who has stolen more than $2,000 worth of candy from a Speedway convenience store there.
The robber might have hit the store more than two dozen times.
People on Facebook have nicknamed him “The Sweet Tooth Bandit.” His method is Grinch-like, shoving entire boxes of candy bars into a backpack and making a quick getaway.
“He comes in, doesn’t show he has a bag, and then he walks right up to the candy aisle. He picks what he wants, dumps the entire box in his bag,” Detective Phillip Herron told Fox 8 in Cleveland.
Store surveillance video from July released by the police department this week shows the man walk into the store with a cane about 2 a.m.
In the candy aisle he sets the cane aside and gets to work. He seems particular in what he steals and stops when the bag is full.
“For a candy bar, a buck and a quarter, it doesn’t seem like a lot of money,” Herron told the TV station. “But if you start taking cases of it, which is what he is doing, you are talking hundreds of dollars. And this case it could be thousands of dollars this guy has taken.”
Police have taken 25 theft reports from the store since July 1, according to The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Employees told detectives they did not report several thefts, Lt. Robert Petrick told the newspaper. An Aug. 11 inventory check revealed about $2,000 worth of candy missing, according to police.
Police said the thieves could be selling the sweet contraband on eBay or Craigslist, or even reselling it to other stores that buy it for pennies on the dollar and make sizable profits from it.
Black market candy is becoming big business on the streets, Herron said.
Armchair sleuths commenting on the department’s Facebook page have their own thoughts on how to identify the bandit.
Maybe a “Wanted” poster at the dentist?
This story was originally published September 22, 2017 at 10:12 AM with the headline "‘Sweet Tooth Bandit’ steals more than $2,000 worth of candy from convenience store."