Supermarket chain robbed 671 times in five years

Contrary to the claim by police that the country's crime rate has gone down, a 24-hour convenience store chain says ts branches nationwide have been robbed and goods stolen 671 times in the past five years, incurring it a total loss of over RM1 million.

KK Supermart Holdings Sdn Bhd, which owns the 127 KK convenience stores in the peninsula, called a press conference in Kuala Lumpur yesterday to reveal the shocking statistics.

All major Chinese newspapers today quoted KK Supermart general manager Hooi Weng Kheong as saying that on the average, there were 134 cases every year and 11 cases every month since 2008, resulting in total losses of RM1,076,000.

Half of the crime cases were robbery, he said, and the number of cases had increased commensurately with the expansion of branches.

The number of crimes has significantly increased by 200 percent in 2012, from 144 cases in 2011 to 431 cases as of Dec 18 this year, Hooi revealed.

Out of these cases, the police only managed to arrest the perpetrators in 30 cases, he said.

The 'hot spots' identified by the company include Wangsa Maju, Jalan Ipoh, Bandar Tun Razak, Puchong and Serdang.

Branches in the Serdang area topped the list, having been robbed more than 20 times in the past two months, while branches in Bandar Tun Razak and Setapak have also been robbed 15 times respectively this year alone.

According to Hooi, 20 of his staff members were hurt in the past five years, and two of them were hospitalised as a result of severe injuries.

The company has since sought the assistance of police, who have deployed their personnel to act as store employees in an effort to nab the criminals.

This step has proven effective, with the undercover policemen thwarting a robbery at a KK branch in Setapak on Monday. One of the two robbers was shot dead during the robbery.

KK Supermart has also set up its own security team to patrol the branches, Hooi added.

Source: Yahoo! News.