How a long day in Target exposed an Indian tourist's Rs 1.1 lakh shoplifting attempt
What gave her away wasn’t one big slip but hours of small ones. A woman walks into a Target in Illinois, wanders from aisle to aisle, checking her phone, picking up hundreds of items, slipping tags off as she goes. She’s there for over seven hours. The longer she stays, the more she draws attention.
A staff member explains in the police video, “We saw this woman roaming around the store for the last 7 hours. She was picking up items, checking her phone, moving between aisles, and eventually tried to walk out the west gate without paying.”
Security had been watching her. She made her way past the tills, bags full. But Target employees had already called the police.
Stopped before she could slip away
Crossing the first exit was the final mistake. CCTV caught her with three stuffed reusable bags. A staff member tells the officer, “She’s taken a ton of merchandise, different kinds. We’re getting a total right now for you. It’ll be over 500 for sure.” The woman, standing next to them, chimes in: “It will be more.”
By the time the police arrived, she was in a back room trying to explain herself. The bodycam footage, uploaded by @BodyCamEdition, shows her desperate to fix it there and then.
“Why can’t I just pay for it?” she asks.
The officer doesn’t budge. “We’re way, way, way past that. You committed a felony.”
She tries to reason: “But if I am paying for it, what’s the harm?”
The officer replies, “It would have been fine if you didn’t leave, right? You would have had that opportunity to pay. But because you left the store at that point, you chose to not pay for it, and we can’t go back.”
They check her ID but can’t find her name online. She says she doesn’t have her passport. She tries giving a different name — Jamisha, not Anya. The officer points out the obvious: “Are you allowed to steal things in India? I did not think so.”
By then, they know she removed tags from 767 items.
Caught red-handed, facing consequences
Legal trouble for her doesn’t end at the store’s door. Immigration lawyer Alen Takhsh explains what this really means: “Regardless, this is a Crime Involving Moral Turpitude, namely one that involves dishonesty and could have serious consequences. If you are in the US on a student visa, an arrest for shoplifting, let alone a conviction, could result in your visa being revoked. If you are in the US on a visitor or work visa, it could lead to you not being allowed to re-enter the US in the future.”
The video has clocked up over 835,000 views and set off fierce debate. Some say maybe she didn’t understand how serious it was. Others think there’s no excuse. Either way, seven hours inside a store with 767 unpaid items was always going to end with the same question at the exit: “Receipt, please?”
A staff member explains in the police video, “We saw this woman roaming around the store for the last 7 hours. She was picking up items, checking her phone, moving between aisles, and eventually tried to walk out the west gate without paying.”
Security had been watching her. She made her way past the tills, bags full. But Target employees had already called the police.
Stopped before she could slip away
Crossing the first exit was the final mistake. CCTV caught her with three stuffed reusable bags. A staff member tells the officer, “She’s taken a ton of merchandise, different kinds. We’re getting a total right now for you. It’ll be over 500 for sure.” The woman, standing next to them, chimes in: “It will be more.”
By the time the police arrived, she was in a back room trying to explain herself. The bodycam footage, uploaded by @BodyCamEdition, shows her desperate to fix it there and then.
“Why can’t I just pay for it?” she asks.
The officer doesn’t budge. “We’re way, way, way past that. You committed a felony.”
She tries to reason: “But if I am paying for it, what’s the harm?”
The officer replies, “It would have been fine if you didn’t leave, right? You would have had that opportunity to pay. But because you left the store at that point, you chose to not pay for it, and we can’t go back.”
They check her ID but can’t find her name online. She says she doesn’t have her passport. She tries giving a different name — Jamisha, not Anya. The officer points out the obvious: “Are you allowed to steal things in India? I did not think so.”
By then, they know she removed tags from 767 items.
Caught red-handed, facing consequences
Legal trouble for her doesn’t end at the store’s door. Immigration lawyer Alen Takhsh explains what this really means: “Regardless, this is a Crime Involving Moral Turpitude, namely one that involves dishonesty and could have serious consequences. If you are in the US on a student visa, an arrest for shoplifting, let alone a conviction, could result in your visa being revoked. If you are in the US on a visitor or work visa, it could lead to you not being allowed to re-enter the US in the future.”
The video has clocked up over 835,000 views and set off fierce debate. Some say maybe she didn’t understand how serious it was. Others think there’s no excuse. Either way, seven hours inside a store with 767 unpaid items was always going to end with the same question at the exit: “Receipt, please?”
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