Women steal from Sacramento-area family-owned liquor stores by smuggling boxes of alcohol in their skirts
ORANGEVALE — Sacramento-area mom-and-pop liquor stores are warning one another about a group of thieves using their clothing to steal thousands of dollars worth of alcohol.
Surveillance footage from the liquor stores shows the women loading up their clothing with entire boxes of liquor. It appears the women sewed special compartments in their long skirts to smuggle products undetected. CBS13 blurred their faces in the video above because they haven't been named as suspects.
"Given that this instance has happened, I don't think we made a profit all of last year," said Jasjit Gill, whose family owns Sunrise Food and Liquor.
The alleged suspects took off with nearly $12,000 worth of alcohol.
Now, liquor store shop owners around Sacramento County are banding together.
"We initially thought it was just the one, like just our store got hit and that's it, but we're realizing it's a much bigger issue," Gill said.
The giveaway is that similar surveillance videos show what appears to be the same group of women making off with the booze under their clothing.
"The two girls started loading up their skirts. They have pouches in there that are really heavy duty because these boxes are like 50-70 pounds each," said Manraj Grewal of 1 Stop Food & Liquor in Orangevale.
Anmol Sandhu, also of 1 Stop Food & Liquor, said he's been there for more than 11 years and has "never seen them before and now they're coming in frequently."
CBS13 spoke with three different family shop owners who said it all starts with someone in the group distracting the cashier. The most recent hit was just this past Saturday at 1 Stop.
"They were all over the place," Grewal said. "Some looking at wine, some at beer. One was asking me about tobacco products, one looking at medicine saying she had a toothache."
The alleged thieves come in as a family, sometimes using their small children as a distraction. The workers at 1 Stop said flags were raised once they all left abruptly, and when they checked the camera footage, they were surprised to see $1,500 worth of product walked out the door in their clothing.
Now, they're taking measures to prevent this from happening again.
"We're going to build a wall here and box all this off," Grewal said. "We're moving all our wine to the front in more visible spots so we can limit theft as much as possible."
"Other stores, I'm not even sure if they're aware yet of their losses and that's the scary part," Sandhu said.
The staff at 1 Stop Food & Liquor said that before they reviewed security footage, they had seen this same group of people come by the store at least two or three times before they realized they were stealing. They want to warn other liquor stores that they could be victims of this crime ring as well and are encouraging shop owners to check their footage.
We reached out to the police about the situation but haven't heard back.