Shocking moment ‘meat thief’ is tackled to the ground with a suitcase full of raw beef – as experts warn premium cuts like scotch fillets and rib-eyes are being used as black market currency to buy DRUGS
- Alleged meat thief chased down by supermarket boss
- The man was tackled to the ground and put under citizen’s arrest
- Private eye claims expensive beef is being used as currency
An alleged meat thief has been dramatically chased along a busy Sydney street and tackled to the ground – as fed up business owners claim beef is the new hot target of shoplifters amid soaring grocery prices.
Footage shows a man wheeling a suitcase allegedly packed to the brim with prime cuts he stole from Harris Farm Markets in Randwick on the weekend, before he is caught by none other than the supermarket’s CEO who performs a citizen’s arrest.
Experienced private investigator Shane Windred claims it’s not a case of thieves pinching the produce to feed their family, but rather to be used as currency on the black market to buy drugs.
He’s been investigating the recent surge in shoplifting rings and says a lot of meat, worth up to $50-a-kilogram, has been ‘walking out the front door’.
The chief executive of Harris Farm Markets in Randwick chased down an alleged thief whose suitcase was packed with beef (pictured)
‘I’m seeing eye fillets, scotch fillets (being stolen)… up to 30 trays at a time,’ he told 7News.
He has been catching thieves for the retail industry for three decades.
Just last week, he caught a shoplifter at a different supermarket and recovered a haul of dozens of meat products.
‘What they’re doing is taking $500 or $600 dollars worth of meat to the drug dealer and they use it as currency,’ he said.
The man in the video is allegedly a repeat shoplifter from the family owned business who has stolen thousands of dollars worth of meat.
He was questioned and released by police without charge pending further investigations.
He tackled him to the ground and performed a dramatic citizens arrest in front of shocked bystanders (pictured)
The Australian Retailers Association estimated all forms of shoplifting across the retail sector costs retailers $9.5 billion per year.
That cost is eventually passed on to other consumers through higher mark ups in store.
According to the data, supermarkets Coles and Woolworths and department stores Myer and David Jones were at the top of the pack for the dollar amount lost to shoplifting.
it comes at a time when Australia’s cost of living crisis has worsened with inflation hitting a new 32-year high of 7.8 per cent.
The consumer price index in the year to December surged at the fastest annual pace since the March quarter of 1990, with Treasurer Jim Chalmers describing it as ‘unacceptably high’.
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