Police said she was offending on an almost daily basis. Photo: RNZ
A woman has been sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of 37 shoplifting charges in the Tauranga District Court.
An officer in the Tauranga Retail Crime Unit began an investigation after a single shoplifting report, with no offender identified and no real lines of enquiry, Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said.
Chambers said from that single report, the officer was able to build a picture of a serial shoplifter, who was offending on an almost daily basis.
A 45-year-old woman was arrested in February and charged with offending dating back to September 2024.
She appeared in Tauranga District Court on 21 May.
Chambers said it highlights the importance of monitoring and following up on what might initially seem like low-level offending.
"We know how devastating this type of offending is for our retail community, and holding people to account for shoplifting and retail theft remains a priority for NZ Police," he said.
"The convictions in this case were a result of not only outstanding investigative work, but also of the great rapport that the officer has built with local retailers.
"Each region is different and policing Districts much continue to have the leeway to decide how their resources are best used, and what their priorities need to be."
The conviction comes after police launched a review last week into how many cases of retail crime were filed while a controversial and now scrapped directive was in place.
The directive said that from 26 March, the FMC was applying "nationally standardised value thresholds" when assessing theft and fraud files. The value thresholds were: General theft $200, petrol drive off $150, shoplifting $500, fraud (paywave, online, scam etc) $1000, and all other fraud $500.
Chambers canned the directive, which he called "confusing and unhelpful" following significant backlash.
On Friday, a police spokesperson confirmed to RNZ the national value threshold applied to the prioritisation of lower-level theft and fraud offences was being removed.
