1 Busy Saturday
The incident happened on Christmas Eve (December 24) at Produce World, city of Orange. The employees were busy serving customers which made it easier for the suspects to pull off the robbery. The women reportedly posed as shoppers and tried to distract the employees from what was happening.
2 Distracting Employees
While some of the women were asking the employees questions and taking up their attention, one of the women was able to sneak into the back and search for valuables. She was probably unaware that security cameras were capturing her every move as she looked for things to steal.
3 Searching For Cash
The “distraction burglary” worked—the woman was free to search in the back for valuables and came across the safe. “The woman wearing a long checkered dress is seen on security video casing the storeroom, going in and out of the office where the money from sales was kept in a safe,” says clerk Salah Siyam.
4 Heavy Safe
Once the woman realized there was a safe, she got to work removing it from the back. The owner of Produce World was surprised she could even move the safe alone, considering it weighed around 80 lbs. “She had something under her skirt and she pulled that down, lifted the safe with one hand and covered it with [a] cove,” owner Nasser Abdallah says.
5 Hiding the Safe
Another one of the women helped the suspect load the safe into a cart and cover it with coats and scarves to hide it. They then casually wheeled it out of the store. “It’s commonplace now which is horrendous,” says customer Robert Shaw. “This is a small place and $9,000 means a lot to them.” ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb