'I feel so betrayed': Toronto police warn of new pick-pocket 'distraction thefts'
CTV
Toronto police are looking into two separate distraction-style thefts in the city this summer — one of which was caught on camera.
Toronto police are looking into two separate distraction-style thefts in the city this summer — one of which was caught on camera.
One victim named J, who fears being targeted again after the theft, is in her early 60s and went to a bank in the city’s Greektown on July 19 before going inside a market to pick up flowers.
“A guy is there with this mask on and he’s asking me about flowers and I’m thinking, ‘I love flowers. I love to help people,’” J recalled in an interview with CTV News Toronto on Monday.
While J spoke with the man, her wallet containing a large sum of money was in her backpack.
Little did J know that as the conversation continued, her wallet was being stolen.
“And then all of a sudden he leaves the store and I thought, ‘that’s weird, he didn’t buy any of the flowers.’ So then I go to buy the flowers that I had gone into the grocery to buy and I take my backpack off, and notice it’s been completely unzipped,” she said.
Now a victim of theft, but still wanting the flowers, J left the market and returned later to purchase them. That’s when the clerk showed her surveillance video of what happened.
