A woman robbed stores of 30 million, posing as a police officer (3 photos)

For two decades, a Birmingham resident systematically stole expensive items from luxury stores. According to the woman herself, she covered the costs of drug addiction by selling stolen goods via instant messengers.





According to the Mirror, 42-year-old Keeley Knowles, who was considered the most active shoplifter in Birmingham (a city in central England), admitted that over 20 years she stole goods worth about 30 million pounds sterling. She explained her actions by the need to provide a daily dose of heroin, but now says that she has finished her criminal past.

According to Knowles, she earned up to £8,000 a day by stealing designer items, including bags and clothes, from boutiques in the city. She sold the goods through a closed WhatsApp group, which had more than 150 buyers. According to the woman, she found out in advance about the change of security at the stores by calling them under the guise of a police officer.

To hide the stolen goods, she used a coat sewn in the shape of a sleeping bag, in which she made secret pockets with her own hands. Knowles said that she had a daily routine: calls to stores in the morning, then - theft, sale, injection, sleep.

"I could easily use up to seven grams of heroin daily. To cover this, I stole every day except Christmas and Good Friday," she said. In one of the stores alone, the losses from her actions were estimated at £3.7 million. Total losses reached approximately £30 million

Knowles began her criminal activity at the age of 13, when she fell under the influence of an older man. She transported drugs to other cities, including Liverpool. The woman spent her childhood in difficult circumstances: her mother was absent, her father was in prison, and she was cared for by her grandparents, who did not know about her addiction.



"I wasn't living - I was surviving. Injecting, stealing, selling - and then the whole cycle," Knowles said. According to her, she has been detained 28 times in Britain and three times in Amsterdam, and there are only three institutions in the UK prison system where she has not yet been.

The turning point was when she joined West Midlands Police's Offending to Recovery programme, which helps addicts reintegrate into society. After treatment, she has been clean for 18 months and now works as an outreach worker for people with similar problems.

She won a National Business Crime Award and has rebuilt her relationship with her family. She says it was a security guard at a shop that had been robbed who pushed her to change: "You're better than this," he said, and referred her to the programme.

"I thought I was going to die an addict. But now I'm helping others. If I've been cured, then anyone can be cured," she added.