Thief hit the same Pierce County store four times and stole $6,000 in perfume, police said

Oct. 25 — Update: According to Gig Harbor Police reports obtained by The News Tribune Oct. 24, an Ulta Beauty employee told officers responding to the fifth shoplifting incident that she believed the suspect to be the same as the one involved in the first incident. on September 30, but different from the suspect on October 1. He was using a backpack that appeared to be the same as one of the suspects in the Oct. 5 case, the report said.

The police report also said that when police received an itemized list of merchandise stolen from the fifth incident, the total came to $2,398.

Original post: Ulta Beauty has lost thousands of dollars in fragrances in recent weeks following five potentially related theft incidents, Gig Harbor police said.

The same man allegedly stole more than $6,000 in fragrance products from the store at 5500 Olympic Dr. in Gig Harbor on four separate days, according to police.

A fifth burglary incident, which reportedly involved a different suspect, occurred Saturday, Gig Harbor Police Lt. Fred Douglas told the News Tribune via email Monday. Because that suspect’s method of stealing the items was similar to the previous four incidents, the incident is likely related, he wrote.

The first theft call came on Sept. 30, when a man stole about $2,000 in perfume, according to Douglas. It was followed by calls on Oct. 1, Oct. 2 and Oct. 5, and it’s likely the same suspect was involved in all four cases, Douglas told the News Tribune via email Oct. 18.

The second burglary call came in just after noon on Oct. 1, according to a Gig Harbor Police Department report. A man took several boxes of items from a display case at the front of the store and put them in his backpack, then left without paying, police said. They said eight boxes of Sauvage Parfum products totaling $1,652.02 were stolen.

The third call came in at approximately 10:53 a.m. on Oct. 2, another police report said. A man entered the store and stole about $2,000 in perfume and cologne from the display case near the front entrance, putting it in a backpack, the sales manager told police. The sales manager identified him as the same man from the previous day.

A fourth call came in at approximately 8:13 p.m. on Oct. 5, according to another police report. The sales manager told the officer that two men had entered the store minutes earlier, and another employee said she could tell from his clothing that at least one of them was the suspect who had stolen items in previous thefts. Staff members told officers the suspects went to the perfume area and placed bottles of unsafe perfume in backpacks. The sales manager estimated the total value of the stolen items to be at least $1,000.

Douglas told the News Tribune via email Monday that a man, possibly different from the one in the previous four incidents, stole an estimated $700 to $800 worth of items from Ulta on Oct. 19. It was “basically the same scenario he went into. and put items in a backpack,” Douglas wrote.

Douglas told the News Tribune they have not yet confirmed or located a suspect.

“We are actively investigating these cases and doing some extra proactive patrols to deter these thefts,” he wrote.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include information from Gig Harbor Police about a fifth theft incident.

This story was originally published on October 21, 2024 at 12:58 pm.