The Five Finger Discount

​In the early 2000s I was working the graveyard shift in a large grocery store. I was a supervisor at the time so part of my duty on nights was to monitor security and shoplifting which at times could get out of control. And every once in a while there would be an employee that would be considered a kleptomaniac. This story is about such a person who we will call Kevin White. 

​Kevin was a guy that was a decent worker but a man that loved to talk. At first I thought that he was just being friendly but deep down I could sense that his talking was to distract me from something but I couldn't figure out what it was. At first I thought it was to kill time so could get out of working, but as the days passed I began to suspect another motive. 

Every night before my shift started at 11 p.m. I would arrive to work and Kevin would be there an hour before his shift was scheduled to start. I asked him why he was so early and he said the he had trouble sleeping during the day and had nothing better to do so he thought it would be a good idea to come in early and chat with the staff. The strange thing about it was everyone was gone from the store at 10 p.m. so there was nobody for him to talk to. My suspicions grew. 

Then one day I was called upstairs by the store manager who quizzed me about why for the second straight month cigarettes showed a shortage of over 10,000 dollars. Then it clicked in my head. Kevin was the one stealing the cigarettes.

A day later Kevin was questioned by the managers because he had access to the  totes in which the cigarettes came in. He became defensive and then said he had seen me taking things out to my car through receiving. The police then arrived to my house a week later with a search warrant and found nothing. 

The cigarette thefts continued and we knew Kevin was doing it but could not figure out how he was stealing them. Then one day I came to work early when he did not expect me. I went to the backroom to watch him work. 

The receiver had just finished unloading the truck and the totes with the cigarettes were sitting in receiving. The receiver then went for his break and Kevin jumped into action by cutting the zip ties on the totes and pulling out cigarette cartons and shoving them in his jacket. He then replaced the zip ties with a new ones and walked to the exit door at the front on the store. There he stood, but he could not leave unless someone in management let him out. He continued to wait and I continued to watch and then one of my employees entered the store with his access card and as soon as the door opened Kevin walked out and put the cigarettes in his trunk and then came back in the store with his access card.

I told loss prevention and they called the police who secured a search warrant for his house and they hit the jacket pot with over 100,000 dollars of stolen merchandise from the store. Everything from condoms to video games. When the police asked him why he stole the items Kevin said he didn't steal them because he was planning to pay for them eventually when he got the money.

At his trial he changed his story and claimed he was the victim of society and the system. He also said he had become a compulsive liar not by choice but in order to survive. The judged laughed at him and gave him a couple years in jail. As he was hauled out of the courtroom screaming hysterically he then threatened to kill the judge.