When I think about what people might steal, I think about money, jewelry, cars, and things like that. The last thing I would think that is being targeted is Tide laundry detergent. Not ALL, or Clorox, or Gain, just Tide. When I first saw this, I thought it must be a small group of people doing this or it was an isolated incident. Nope. The Tide thefts are getting so bad in some places the local authorities are setting up task forces to catch these clean burglars and some stores are locking up there Tide, much like what is done with video games at stores. But how bad is it really? Well, one man in St. Paul was recently arrested for stealing over $25000 worth of Tide over a 15 month period.
This leads to the question I think we all have...Why? The explanation I found is that it is a house hold product. Mostly everyone uses some sort of detergent and Tides orange bottle makes it the most recognizable. Also Tide, unlike some other detergents, Tide doesn’t have serial numbers which makes them impossible to track. Apparently the thieves are selling the detergent on the black market for a fraction of the retail price and in some cases sold back to the stores they were stolen from.
I didn't know there was a black market demand for soap. Once again, when I think of the black market I think of guns, drugs, and plutonium (not that I'd know, I watch too many movies). I wonder if there is something else that can be done with Tide. Can it be broken down into drugs? Is it an ingredient in some sort of bomb? Or is it simply that bad guys need to do laundry too?
This leads to the question I think we all have...Why? The explanation I found is that it is a house hold product. Mostly everyone uses some sort of detergent and Tides orange bottle makes it the most recognizable. Also Tide, unlike some other detergents, Tide doesn’t have serial numbers which makes them impossible to track. Apparently the thieves are selling the detergent on the black market for a fraction of the retail price and in some cases sold back to the stores they were stolen from.
I didn't know there was a black market demand for soap. Once again, when I think of the black market I think of guns, drugs, and plutonium (not that I'd know, I watch too many movies). I wonder if there is something else that can be done with Tide. Can it be broken down into drugs? Is it an ingredient in some sort of bomb? Or is it simply that bad guys need to do laundry too?
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