A woman who made more than half a million pounds by shoplifting and fraudulently claiming refunds on stolen goods across England and Wales has been jailed for 10 years. Narinder Kaur, 54, from Cleverton, Wiltshire, carried out over 1,000 raids on high street stores between July 2015 and September 2019.
When police searched her home, they found £150,000 in cash and stolen items she had not yet returned. Kaur, who used 17 aliases, was convicted of 26 counts of fraud, money laundering, and perverting the course of justice. Sentencing at Gloucester Crown Court, Judge Lawrie described her as a 'thoroughly dishonest individual' and her operation as fraud on an 'Olympian scale'.
Kaur targeted stores including Boots, House of Fraser, Monsoon, and Homebase in cities such as Cardiff, Oxford, Winchester, Exeter, and Bath. She also attempted to defraud Wiltshire Council of £7,400 by overpaying with stolen credit cards and requesting a refund for the excess.
Detective Inspector Tom Straker of Wiltshire Police said: 'As most of us went to work, Kaur carried out crime as her profession. She travelled up and down the country earning a living as a professional shoplifter and a prolific fraudster.'
Kaur continued offending even while under investigation and on bail. She was arrested in October 2020 attempting to fraudulently return items in Swindon, and again in May 2021 for similar offences at Asda stores in Melksham and Swindon. Fraud investigator Steve Tristram called her 'the most dishonest person I’ve ever dealt with in 40 years of policing'.
