This is the astonishing moment a thief stole an entire fish tank from an aquarium shop as the owner tried to shame her into returning it.
Dan Murroni, who owns Fish Planet London, in Finsbury Park, said the city is ‘falling apart’ after he was left stunned when a brazen shoplifter walked out with the tank in what is the third theft in a week.
The 33-year-old followed the thief after she swiped the tank and repeatedly asked the unknown woman to return it but was met with a nonchalant response – before backing off as she produced a screwdriver. He claims that she also showed him a knife from one of her bags, though it is not caught on camera.
He is now demanding change in the capital city after allegedly receiving no help from the police or the council despite his pleas.
a thief stole an entire fish tank from an aquarium shop as the owner tried to shame her into returning it
Mr Murroni filmed the entire exchange, which shows him closely following the woman, who wears grey jeans and a grey t-shirt and is carrying multiple carrier bags and a pink rucksack.
She is seen marching down the road while the shop owner follows her as he films, pointing at her and saying: ‘She just stole from my shop.’
He asks her to give him the tank, but she is not giving it up that easily, replying: ‘What are you talking about? Go away, f**k off.’
Mr Murroni warns: ‘You know you are live on Instagram. Thousands of people are watching you right now, so it’s better if you give me the tank now because you’re going to prison.’
As they walk past another pedestrian, the woman attempts to accuse him of robbing her, but he is only spurred on to expose her as the thief.
He says: ‘Everyone can see you because you have tattoos everywhere. The police are coming, they are coming.
‘You’d better give me this bag. Give me this bag and I’m going to leave.’
The woman, unbothered by her pursuer, continues to stride away as she mumbles: ‘You’re going to go away anyway.’
This back-and-forth carries on as CCTV footage plays over the clip showing the woman bending over in the middle of the shop and slipping a sizeable clear fish tank into one of her bags.
The 33-year-old followed the thief after she swiped the tank and repeatedly asked the unknown woman to return it but was met with a nonchalant response
She covers it with a jacket before picking it up and walking away as if nothing has happened.
Back in the confrontation, Mr Murroni is approached by an unseen bloke who asks: ‘What’s going on bruv?’
The woman then also turns on the business owner, coming right up to him as he again asks for the bag containing the tank.
Realising the situation, Mr Murroni backs off but continues filming as the woman puts the bag down and appears to pull a screwdriver out from within.
He shared the clip to social media on Sunday with a caption pleading for something to be done about the state of the British capital: ‘Two years ago, owning a shop was my dream.
‘I didn’t realize that from that moment on, one of my main jobs would be protecting my shop and my life from people constantly stealing from the store, threatening us, and physically attacking us.
This was the third time someone stole from our store this week. We are not the only store that has been robbed in our area.
‘Most of the shops on our street have been targeted, but nobody acts. The police write reports, but for what? Just to waste paper?
‘Is anybody taking action here? I’m wondering where Islington Council is, the one that gets thousands of pounds every month from our council tax.
‘Is anybody willing to take responsibility? Where is the police? Why is everyone burying their heads in the sand and making it seem like “this is London, get used to it”?
‘The reality is that everyone is here to get money, but nobody is here to keep us safe. When this happened, I called the police and even stopped a policeman in the street to show him what happened.
‘He said, “Sorry, we don’t deal with those kinds of things”.
‘I’m left by myself with the only answer being, “You can file a claim”. File a claim? Who is going to file a claim when we get killed by these people?’
The post continued: ‘After this incident, we had another person try to steal from the shop today. This is not fair.
‘We are always waiting for something really bad to happen before we act, before we install more CCTV cameras, before we have more policemen patrolling the area, before we implement more rules.
‘The thing is, it’s already too late. Some people have even been killed in this area this month.
‘These criminals come with knives and screwdrivers. If you react, you are dead. If you try to get your stuff back, they will attack you.
‘Is this normal? Who’s going to protect us? It looks like London is falling apart.’
It has since received over 3,200 likes and more than 770 comments from disgusted social media users.
One said: ‘Please tell me you got the police? You gave her plenty of chances to hand it back. She does not even seem to care.’
Mr Murroni replied: ‘Unfortunately I called the police while following her and stopped a policeman in the street and none of them helped.
‘They just said to stop following her and do a claim.’
A second wrote: ‘Why should she just get away with it? This man works hard running his own business and this scum just comes along and robs him.
‘What’s wrong with this country?’
Another commented: ‘That’s what they do, take bags in and fill them up, they don’t care what they take. This is terrible.’
A fourth said: ‘Another depressing caption of broken Britain.’
Another wrote: ‘She will get her karma.’
Speaking today, Mr Murroni said: ‘Since our store has been voted best aquatic company of the year, we’ve been extremely busy, probably the busiest aquatic store in London.
‘It became so hard to control every moment. Since that moment, many more people started to steal as you can always blend into the crowd.
‘All stores in our street have been robbed many times, much more than us, but if people can steal a fish tank, imagine what can they actually do?’
