A chocolate thief stole around £5,000 worth of confectionery on a shoplifting spree across England.
Ionit Rova, 20, targeted nine Tesco stores and an Aldi supermarket between August and January as he criss-crossed the country plundering thousands of pounds worth of chocolate.
The serial shoplifter was jailed for 10 weeks at Reading magistrates’ court.
Magistrates heard Rova stole £800 worth of items from Tesco in Daventry, Northants, on August 20.
The following month, the criminal stole £800 of items from Tesco in Amersham, Bucks,, then £600 worth of chocolates from another Tesco in Princes Risborough, Bucks, three days later.
On Oct 15, Rova stole £500 worth of confectionery from Tesco in Faringdon, Oxfordshire – and on Hallowe’en stole £400 worth of chocolate from Tesco in Warfield, Berks.
On Nov 13, he stole £600 of items from Tesco in Swaffham, Norfolk, and later on the same day shoplifited £300 worth of items from a Tesco store in Dereham, Norfolk.
On Nov 25, Rova stole £502.50 worth of items from a Tesco in Leatherhead, Surrey.
He struck another Tesco in Oakham, Rutland, on Dec 2, stealing £672 worth of items, before finally stealing £238.14 of items from Aldi in Wokingham, Berks, on Jan 18.
At his sentencing on Feb 17, Rova was told his jail term had been reduced from 45 weeks because he admitted the thefts.
Stores hit by shoplifting crisis
Latest Home Office figures reveal the number of shoplifting offences going unsolved has risen by nearly a fifth in a year. Around 270,000 shoplifting cases in England and Wales were closed without a suspect being identified in the year to September 2024.
Just 88,165 shoplifting offences last year resulted in a charge or summons – 18 per cent of all cases, according to an analysis of Home Office data by the Liberal Democrats last month.
Separate figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that overall offences in the year to June 2024 hit nearly 470,000 – up 29 per cent on the previous year.
There are more than 9,000 shoplifting offences a week, or 1,290 a day, and more than two a minute based on average UK store opening times of 10 hours a day, the figures show.
These figures are the highest since records began in March 2003, with retailers warning the crisis adds at least 6p to every store transaction by customers.
Lisa Smart, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, previously said: “For too long, shopkeepers have been left vulnerable while criminal gangs are allowed to operate with virtual impunity.
“Our high streets and communities deserve better than this. If the Government wants to deliver safer streets, getting a grip on the unsolved shoplifting epidemic must be a priority.
“The Liberal Democrats are urging the Government to keep their promise by restoring proper community policing – with more bobbies on the beat focused on stopping and solving crime.”
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