The cheese theft epidemic
By Emma Teitel - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - 0 Comments
Three per cent of our planet’s cheese is stolen every year
Chris Ratcliffe/Getty Images
Forget candy bars and bubble gum: according to the U.K.’s Centre for Retail Research, over three per cent of our planet’s cheese is stolen every year—making it the “most stolen food item in the world.” Apparently, says Joshua Bamfield, director of the centre, “a lot of the theft is for resale and a lot of this cheese will be resold into other markets or to restaurants.” And he has a point. Yahoo! News reports that two Michigan men were recently caught stealing over $1,000 worth of provolone, and a group of ambitious shoplifters in Oregon attempted to roll three large wheels of cheese worth approximately $600 out of a supermarket. It’s hard to believe their motives were fondue related.
At home, Express Fine Foods in Toronto’s Greek village has resorted to keeping its cheese in the centre of the store under bright lights and a video camera, all to dissuade the too-familiar cheese thief. One staffer says cheese theft has become “a huge problem,” with patrons stealing the store’s cheese and “taking it to the bar for when they have a beer” (how he came to that conclusion remains a mystery). Other foods commonly targeted include fresh meat, baby formula, chocolate and seafood.
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Shoplifting is flourishing worldwide
By Brian Bethune - Tuesday, July 19, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments
Why is steak on everyone’s top 10 list?
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In 1800, the first known trial of a shoplifter who was not a known criminal took place in Bath, England. Jane Leigh Perrot, 55, was not exactly the Winona Ryder or Lindsay Lohan of her day, but she was a respectable married lady of means, Jane Austen’s aunt no less. Leigh Perrot claimed in court that the shopkeeper was running a scam—that he had inserted the white lace in question into her legitimate purchase so that he could shake her down outside the shop, extorting a bribe for not reporting her to the magistrate.
Leigh Perrot offered no compelling evidence on that point, however, and it seems more likely the jury was swayed by her lawyer’s first-ever use of the so-called celebrity defence, which would echo through prominent shoplifting cases for the next two centuries: why would a prosperous woman like my client risk liberty and reputation to steal a trinket she could easily afford to buy? In any event, she was acquitted, and it wasn’t until the 1980s that Aunt Jane emerged from family records—combed exhaustively by Austen scholars for their own purposes—as a compulsive kleptomaniac. (Nursery plants were particularly at risk when she came to visit.)
It’s no accident this strangely contemporary event took place in England, the first commercially modern nation, argues Rachel Shteir, author of The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting, or that the concept of kleptomania was developed in early 19th-century Paris, home to some of the world’s earliest and most alluring department stores. Kleptomania, Shteir points out, was both a key concept in early psychiatry and a social necessity, a defence that kept respectable women from ending up in the same rat-infested cells as their poor sisters. It still performs that function today, when a defence is needed at all. The rate of detection—an estimated one person caught per 48 thefts—makes shoplifting among the safer crimes to commit.
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Police blotter
By macleans.ca - Monday, May 16, 2011 at 9:35 AM - 0 Comments
A round-up of the bizarre crimes reported across the country
Nova Scotia: A New Glasgow man was charged with theft and mischief after stealing a ballot box from a polling station during last week’s federal election. He was apprehended outside while jumping on the box. He has done this twice before: in 2000, he threw a ballot box in a lagoon; in 2006, he ran over one with his truck. The man says he is protesting a local pulp mill and native land settlement.
Quebec: Pepper spray is a prohibited weapon in Canada, which is why the owner of a Salaberry-de-Valleyfield business—selling home security alarm systems that dispense pepper spray—was the subject of a police investigation. While executing a search warrant at his offices, police were blasted with pepper spray. The man, his wife and their daughter face various weapons and trafficking charges.
Ontario: A man charged with assault with a weapon started the fight by goading his pit bull to attack another man; instead, the dog bit its owner on the arm and face. The owner fled, returning without the dog but with another man and a chain. The victim fought back until police arrived at the scene. The altercation began after the victim caught the man urinating on his lawn.
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Signing away your savings
By Risha Gotlieb - Friday, March 25, 2011 at 6:00 AM - 8 Comments
Joint bank accounts are increasingly being used to defraud seniors and effectively rewrite wills
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At 85 and with failing eyesight, Donna (not her real name) was relieved when her daughter returned to Toronto to assist her. Eventually, she added her daughter’s name to her bank accounts to facilitate bill payments. A year and a half later, Donna’s eldest son, who works overseas, hired Jayne-Ann Steele, a long-term care specialist, to surrogate some of his sister’s duties. “One day Donna asked me to read her bank statements aloud,” says Steele. “She was shocked when I read out the huge sums of money being withdrawn like clockwork every month—to the tune of over $200,000″ in the span of 18 months. When I saw her daughter’s name beside hers, I instinctively knew who was taking the money.” Today Donna no longer speaks to her daughter. She must rely on her other three children to subsidize her retirement expenses. “These families never recover from the betrayal,” says Steele.
Joint bank accounts are increasingly being used as a vehicle to defraud Canadian seniors. Although the banking industry recognizes the problem, most banks do little to curtail it, say experts. Toronto lawyer Jan Goddard, an estate and elder law specialist, says banks are making it dangerously easy for their senior clients to add others to their accounts. In fact, sometimes the bank staff “steers” them into this arrangement, she says, because they recognize they need help with the simplest of banking tasks. (Raising the question: are seniors giving informed consent if they can’t even decipher a bank statement?) It’s a process that can take mere minutes, ruin lives, and yet seniors may be encouraged to do it without the benefit of legal advice.
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Was someone after photos of Harper?
By Michael Friscolanti - Monday, December 13, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 17 Comments
Not even the Prime Minister’s own office is safe from the criminal element
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Stephen Harper is a law-and-order type of guy, a champion of mandatory minimum sentences and tough legislation with names like Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act. But it turns out that not even the Prime Minister’s own office is safe from the criminal element. Just ask Jason Ransom, his official photographer. Someone stole his computer—right inside the Langevin Block, the PM’s supposedly ultra-secure headquarters.
The heist happened in April 2009, but news of the incident didn’t spread until this week, when Maclean’s started asking questions about an obscure item buried in the latest public accounts of Canada: a $1,298 reimbursement for “theft of personal laptop.”
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Now that's a slap on the wrist
By macleans.ca - Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments
Police Blotter
Getty Images
New Brunswick: After demanding cash at a convenience store, two Saint John teens were charged: a 19-year-old with robbery and a 16-year-old with breach of probation. After his glasses were scratched with a knife during the incident, the storekeeper grabbed a piece of shelving and hit the 19-year-old on the wrist.
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Champagne wishes
By Steve Maich - Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 9:20 AM - 119 Comments
He stole $100 million, and lived like a king. Then it all fell apart.
The experts will tell you that most frauds start small—maybe a few hundred bucks pocketed here, a little accounting fudge there—and get gradually bigger over time as the thief warms to the task, and gains confidence. That’s the way it almost always goes.But Paul Champagne was not your typical fraudster. For one thing, Champagne had no particular expertise in finance. He was a computer engineer, brought in to manage maintenance contracts at Canada’s Department of National Defence in 1992. He was a technical authority, who could tell the bureaucrats how to buy, operate and maintain their computer systems more efficiently, and to save the taxpayer money in the process. For most of his time at DND, he wasn’t even an employee, but an outside contractor. And, up until the day he was fired in 2003, most of his colleagues thought he was doing a great job. Even when he was fired, it was for exceeding his authority in approving contracts that were beyond his position. Continue…
