Five women covertly steal safe from Orange County grocery store
Police are searching for a group of women who pulled off a covert burglary in the city of Orange.
It happened last Saturday as employees at Produce World were busy helping customers. Police call it a distraction burglary. In total, five women were involved. According to officials, they posed as shoppers and peppered two clerks with all kinds of questions, allowing one of the women to sneak in the back and look for cash.
"The woman wearing a long checkered dress is seen on security video casing the storeroom, going in and out of the office where the money from sales was kept in a safe," said clerk Salah Siyam.
The owner of Produce World is shocked that the woman who took the safe could easily lift it by herself. He said it weighs about 80 pounds.
"She had something under her skirt and she pulled that down, lifted the safe with one hand and covered it with [a] cove," said owner Nasser Abdallah.
A second thief helped her accomplice place the safe inside a cart before covering it with some coats and scarves.
The pair wheeled the safe out of the store and into the getaway car with no one the wiser. Abdallah said the supermarket stashed $9,000 inside the safe.
"It's commonplace now which is horrendous," said customer Robert Shaw. "This is a small place and $9,000 means a lot to them."
