/ 17 August 2009

New Zealand’s dumbest criminal

A man vying for the title of New Zealand’s most incompetent criminal left his name and contact details with a shop before robbing it and fleeing.

The man — a regular customer of the music shop in the southern city of Christchurch — grabbed handfuls of banknotes from the till with four surveillance cameras trained on him, the shop’s manager told The Press newspaper in a report on Monday.

Manager Garry Knight said although the shop assistant was distracted with helping another customer, two other people in the store witnessed the theft on Friday. “It’s comical.”

Just minutes before the robbery, the man had approached the assistant, saying he wanted a copy of Pink Floyd’s album “The Wall” held for him. He wrote his name and contact details down for the assistant.

He also had other long-standing requests for albums at the shop, also accompanied by his name and contact details.

There was no confirmation whether the requests included Jethro Tull album “Thick as a Brick”.