Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting – why do rich people steal stuff? From toothpaste to corned beef, these millionaires get a kick out of petty theft
Last year, multimillionaire Andrew Francis Lippi III was arrested for trying to cheat Kmart out of US$200, when he had bought an US$8 million island in the Florida Keys a week earlier – why do those with everything steal from supermarkets they could buy outright?
It was the gold-plated hairdryer that surprised him the most – and not just because gilding that gadget seemed so unnecessary.
Tassilo Keilmann, the CEO of German-language spa and hotel guide Wellness Heaven, surveyed hoteliers from across the world seeking details on the items stolen from their properties in September and October last year. He was astonished at the loss of that Goldfinger -worthy trinket, pilfered from the bathroom of a “six-star” hotel in Dubai. Just as surprising was the story of how professional mechanics dismantled a Tesla supercharger from the garage of another property in Italy.
As for mattresses, GMs told him it was commonplace for them to go AWOL. Usually, Keilmann explains, they’re bundled into service lifts late at night, but at one high-end hotel, the thieves were more brazen. “They caught them on the security camera, throwing it out of the window – it bounced into the parking lot, where someone drove up and put it in their car,” he said.
Aside from the ingenuity of such dishonesty, another element of the survey stood out to him: the likelihood of high-end items, whether TVs, pianos, or even artwork, being stolen at the priciest hotels was higher than at four-star properties. Wealthy guests, in other words, had stickier fingers than ordinary travellers.
“It’s the perfect crime, because five star hotels don’t really want to go to the police and risk their reputation, with officers walking around among the other guests,” Keilmann said.
It isn’t just hotels that face such elite underhandedness, either. Consider the shoplifting problem at high end retailers. One 2008 study in the American Journal of Psychology suggested that wealthy people – considered as those with family incomes more than US$70,000 for the study’s purposes – were 30 per cent more likely to steal from any store than those who made US$20,000.
Of a series of high-profile cases in past years, perhaps the most infamous is Winona Ryder’s. The movie star made headlines almost two decades ago when arrested trying to steal from Saks. She initially claimed it was research for a role, then blamed a rogue prescription; she was convicted and sentenced to probation.
To a lot of wealthy people, it becomes like a video game – I’ve interviewed very wealthy people and they often feel that they’re entitled to swag
In 2011, police arrested model and party staple Beata Boman for stealing an US$11,000 scarf from a department store in Connecticut; her dog-ate-my-homework excuse involved a distracted state induced by a phone call from a sick friend. “Anyone who knows Beata knows she has no need and no reason to steal anything,” said her lawyer in her defence. Two years later, after Boman completed an 18-month rehab programme, charges against her were dropped.
And last year, multimillionaire Andrew Francis Lippi III was arrested for trying to bilk Kmart via fraudulent returns worth around US$200; he had bought an US$8 million island in the Florida Keys a week earlier. He had little explanation to offer.