Lingerie thieves steal undies for $, not the frill of it

Honest shoppers might head to Walmart or Macy's in search of Black Friday deals, but bra bandits and thong thieves apparently prefer Victoria's Secret.

The lingerie chain has been targeted by professional panty pilferers from coast to coast who swipe thousands of dollars worth of underwear per trip, then unload it on the black market.

Last month, $1,400 worth of bras were stolen from the Victoria's Secret in the Granite Run Mall in Media, according to state police. In July, someone pocketed 32 bras, which sell for as much as $50 each.

Stores in other states have been hit even harder:

This month, four people stole more than $2,000 in undergarments from the MarketFair Mall Victoria's Secret near Princeton, N.J. Last year, nearly $29,000 of merchandise was stolen from two Florida stores, and a $10,000 panty raid - 650 pairs - was reported by a Washington state store.

A Victoria's Secret in Tennessee has been victimized several times in recent years, including a $4,000 underwear heist in 2007. This month, four women stole jackets, T-shirts and 30 pairs of pink panties from the same location - then pepper-sprayed a store employee who tried to stop them.

Read Hayes, director of the Florida-based Loss Prevention Research Council, which conducts theft-prevention research for major retailers, said that it's unlikely that the thieves are stealing pricey lingerie for the sheer thrill of it.

Most of them are probably "boosters" - professional shoplifters - who steal the merchandise to sell to other players in the organized retail-crime community. It then gets sold online or elsewhere, Hayes said.

Officials at Victoria's Secret's parent company, Limited Brands, did not respond yesterday to requests for comment. The company previously has declined to disclose the amount of merchandise it loses to theft, or to discuss its theft-prevention methods, other than to say that it works "aggressively" with police.

Last year, four people were arrested in Delaware County for stealing $2,200 worth of bras from the Granite Run Mall store.

An official from Victoria's Secret loss-prevention unit told state police at the time that the company suspected that the thieves might have been part of an interstate ring that bilked the chain of $600,000 to $1 million through theft and fraudulent transactions.