A woman whose purse and credit cards were stolen in a matter of moments became the latest victim of distraction thefts in Orange County.
The rising theft trend targets unsuspecting shoppers where thieves may engage the victim in conversation while another accomplice quickly takes their personal items.
Cheryl Armstrong said she was recently targeted while grocery shopping at a Ralph’s supermarket in Anaheim Hills.
Armstrong said the first thing she does when unloading groceries into her car is to place her purse on the front passenger seat before closing the door.
But before she could enter the driver’s side of her car, suddenly a man interrupted her.
“As I was starting to walk to put my cart in the corral, a man who was up there, towards the market, he said, ‘Lady! Someone bumped into your car with a trolley,’” Armstrong recalled.
He then approached her vehicle and began pointing out the scratches. That’s when Armstrong believed his accomplice opened the passenger door and stole her phone, which also doubled as a wallet, from her purse.
Before Armstrong even noticed the disappearance, she said her cards had already been used to rack up thousands of dollars in purchases from a Best Buy store down the street.
“It’s very frustrating,” she said.
Armstrong’s incident marks the second time in a week a similar distraction theft happened at a Ralph’s market.
On Wednesday, Irvine police released a security video of an older woman shopping when she left her purse unattended inside her cart.
A man nearby quickly rifles through her purse to grab her wallet. Before the man has time to escape with the wallet, the woman turns around. He quickly hides the wallet inside a shelf to avoid suspicion. Later on, a female accomplice walks up to the same shelf to retrieve the stolen wallet.
It’s unclear whether the same suspects were involved in the Anaheim Hills theft, but police are continuing to investigate. The thieves involved in both thefts remain at large.
Anyone with information can call Anaheim Police at 714-765-1900 or email Irvine Police at rsteen@cityofirvine.org.
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