WILTON MANORS, Fla. – They aren’t going for the cheap stuff — they’re mostly grabbing Corona and Heineken.
It’s hard to tell if this is a crew, or exactly how many are involved, but they have been caught on camera walking into 7-Eleven stores all over Broward County and walking out with beer.
“They are the same people who came in and stole last Wednesday from my location,” said gas station owner Rolando Miret.
It wasn’t until Miret saw Local 10′s report that he realized the guys who he said stole from his store have been busy.
“They came in, and they were casing the gas station for beer,” he said.
One instance caught on surveillance video shows the thieves getting away with, not beer, but nearly $120 worth of air fresheners.
“While he’s waiting in line, the guy comes in, steals the whole box of air fresheners, while my cashier is being occupied by another customer,” Miret said.
Some 7-Eleven locations are having to take extra precautions because of this band of beer bandits targeting their stores.
“We keep a lock on the cooler because they’re so bold they’ll walk inside the cooler,” sales associate Raven Dunn said.
Each time it’s the same routine: two people, either two men or a man and a woman, walk in together, snag the suds and walk out before hopping into a car.
“Two gentlemen came in, grabbed four 18-packs from the back and just rushed out of here and took off racing,” manager Hung Tran said.
It’s been happening for weeks now, with at least six known locations that have been hit — some more than once.
“As sales associates, we work really hard to maintain our inventory, nd when we take losses like that we get in trouble,” Dunn said. “We have to explain it. It’s not like we tell them go take it and walk out the store. We have to explain ourselves to the big man.”
The crooks have been caught on camera multiple times, sometimes even without masks on, so their faces are pretty clear.
But they’ve still yet to be caught.
“It looks like a similar group of people,” Tran said. “Again, we’re not 100% sure, but we’re trying to keep everyone safe and hopefully someone out there has knowledge of what’s going on and can help us out.”
Miret believes that the law will catch up with the brazen thieves.
“You will be caught,” he said. “Sooner or later, you will be caught.”
If you recognize any of the people in the videos, or maybe the car, call Broward Crime Stoppers at (954) 493-8477.