Anyone carrying a bag into the movies knows there’s basically only one thing you can do with it: you place that purse/man bag/tote/shopping bag/whathaveyou on the ground and no one drops their soda on the ground nearby. A Connecticut man saw all those bags as a way to make some easy money, crawling around on movie theater floors to steal up to $70,000 a week.

These must be some movie theaters with serious leg room, for someone to successfully avoid detection long enough to amass that kind of fortune.

The man and his accomplices used the stolen cards to get thousands of dollars in cash advances from Connecticut gambling casinos, reports the Hartford Courant. They’d also ring up thousands of dollars in purchases at retailers.

The man managed to snag $50,000 to $70,000 on a “good weekend,” said one of his accomplices during the ringleader’s trial last week. If things were slow, he’d have to make do with $30,000 to $40,000. Rough.

He even targeted movies that were sure to bring in all the ladies, because of the likely proliferation of purses, and would then watch from afar to see how they stowed their belongings.

After he had the cards, he’d use counterfeiting equipment to make driver’s licenses with the photographs of his accomplices so they could use the stolen credit cards. Then, time to shop.

Unfortunately for the man at the top of this crawly operation for at least five years, he was convicted of identity theft and fraud and likely won’t see a movie theater floor to game for quite a few years.

Creeping Theater Thief Costs Movie-Goers Tens of Thousands In Credit Card Fraud [Hartford Courant]

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