Man stole $10 from restaurant tip jar but left without eating $14.90 meal he'd already paid for

Crime did not pay for a tip jar thief in New Zealand who left a restaurant hungry and out of pocket. He paid for a $14.90 a meal, then took off with up to $10 from the tip jar – without eating. The ironic tale, caught on CCTV footage, unfolded at the Nandos Riccarton in Christchurch on Friday afternoon.



Restaurant owner Yateen Lallu said the man, who had been in the day before, sat and waited for his meal before spying his opportunity. "He then quietly got up, looked around and saw nobody was watching and put the tip jar in his bag." The man went to the bathroom before Lallu's wife discovered the tip jar, containing $5 to $10, was gone. Lallu confronted the man when he returned and he denied any wrongdoing.

Lallu checked the bathroom and discovered the empty tip jar on the floor. "I said to him 'there's our tip jar', and he said 'it wasn't me, it must have been someone else'. I said 'are you sure? Are you telling the truth?' And he told me to check his bag and check the security cameras and I started to doubt myself." As Lallu replayed security camera footage to confirm his wife's suspicions the man left. "He hadn't actually got his food, so in total he would have probably got $5 to $10 and he paid $14.90 for something he didn't get.


LiveLeak link. Original Facebook video.

"So it wasn't worth it, he had a bad day. It was not good karma for the poor bloke." Police are investigating whether the suspect was the same man who was filmed stealing security cameras, (video), from the Casa Dei Bambini preschool in Richmond on Sunday November 29. A police spokeswoman said both thefts were under investigation. Officers in charge of the separate cases were looking at CCTV images to see if it was the same man involved.