A serial shoplifter has been jailed for two years after stealing an estimated £100,000 worth of beauty products from Boots stores across London and Wales. Gabriella Stan, 25, was captured on CCTV casually filling a bag with Maybelline cosmetics while an accomplice held it open.
Shocking CCTV Footage
The 41-second clip shows Stan, who came to the UK from Romania, looking around for security guards before placing several items into the bag held by her female sidekick. A third woman with a suitcase, believed to be an unrelated shopper, watches on.
Targeted Stores
Stan mainly targeted Boots branches in London, including Ealing, Wandsworth, Camden, and Kensington, but also stole from a store in Pontypridd, Wales.
Court Proceedings
At Southwark Crown Court, Stan admitted 14 charges of theft and asked for 36 further offences to be taken into consideration. Prosecutor Babatunde Alabi described her as a 'persistent offender', noting that on one occasion she stole £5,000 worth of goods from a Boots in Richmond last October.
Alabi told the court: 'She enters Boots stores with at least one female. High-value makeup and beauty items are targeted, they are placed in the bag before being removed from the store.' Members of the gang would often distract security guards while accomplices helped themselves.
Defence Mitigation
Defence barrister Dhanes Charme said: 'This is someone who in effect carried out the orders of others. She cannot write her name, she cannot read or write.' Stan wept in the dock as Charme revealed her husband had not visited her since her arrest and is believed to have abandoned her.
Sentencing
Judge Stephen Tomlinson said: 'In each instance you stole high-value products from branches of Boots chemists. Your offending was always committed with accomplices which provided distractions. There was a recent occasion where you went as far as South Wales and you were apprehended.' He added that the volume of offending indicated significant planning.
The judge sentenced Stan on the basis of the more conservative £100,000 figure, though Boots provided an impact statement estimating losses of £143,220 between May 2 and December 7, 2025. Stan will serve half her sentence before being released on licence and is banned from all Boots stores in the UK until April 28, 2031.
Police Response
Chief Inspector Rav Pathania, the Met’s lead for tackling retail crime, said: 'Tackling shoplifting is a top priority for the Met and we solved nearly twice as many cases last year while arresting almost 50 per cent more suspects. Shoplifting has fallen by almost four per cent in London – meaning 3,200 fewer victims.'
