Expensive steel fragrances

Vienna police search for luxury thief

Who recognizes the notorious perfume and glasses thief?

(Bild: Landespolizeidirektion Wien)

Expensive sunglasses, fine fragrances - a previously unknown person knew exactly what he was after in drugstores and opticians in Vienna. Now the police are looking for the thief. 

When a young man with black hair, beard and ear studs entered an optician's store on Mariahilfer Straße at lunchtime on March 27, none of the employees knew that the previously unknown man never intended to pay. The suspected thief quickly packed 13 pairs of Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta and Gucci sunglasses into an obviously prepared paper bag from a jeans manufacturer and left the store.

Two days later, the thief - again equipped with a paper bag - turned up at a drugstore in Penzing's Auhof Center. There he stole perfumes from the luxury brands Mugler and Armani. He managed to escape undetected - it was only afterwards that the employees noticed the brazen theft of their goods.

Caught in Floridsdorf
On March 30, the luxury thief's latest coup went badly wrong. He was caught when he made numerous perfumes disappear in his paper bag in the branch of the same drugstore chain in Floridsdorfer Prager Straße. The stranger had to flee on foot without any loot. According to police spokesman Markus Dittrich, further crimes cannot be ruled out.

The regional police department is now asking the public for information about the suspected serial thief with mugshots. They can be submitted - also anonymously - directly to the Ziegelofenweg police station or by telephone on 01/313 10 DW 643 22.