Prolific perfume burglar from North Hampshire jailed
A man's been jailed for four and a half years after pleading guilty to a string of perfume burglaries across Surrey, Hampshire, and the Thames Valley.
33 year old Bogdan Florea of Houseman Road, Farnborough, was sentenced after appearing at Guildford Crown Court for a series of raids on multiple chemists and pharmacies across the three counties.
His eight offences took place between July and September last year.
Officers were originally called to Elphicks in Farnham on Friday, 16 July 2021 following reports of a large quantity of perfume being stolen.
A short time later, Hampshire Police were called to a similar incident at Boots, Fleet.
Over the course of three months, more calls from Boots and Superdrug stores came in reporting burglaries of a similar nature where perfume and cosmetics were stolen.
The other areas affected included Walton-on-Thames, Henley-on-Thames, Godalming, and Wallingford.
Following another report on Tuesday, 28 September of a similar burglary at Boots in Woodley, near Reading, enquiries identified Florea’s vehicle as being in the areas around the time the burglaries took place.
Officers attended the home address of Florea the following day and upon arrival saw him and three other males enter one of the vehicles involved in the offences and drive off.
The vehicle was stopped swiftly afterwards by officers from West Surrey Proactive Team on Prospect Road in Farnborough.
Florea was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit burglary. He was also found in possession of fraudulent ID documents.
During a subsequent search of Florea’s bedroom, officers located a suitcase and a bag containing a total of 131 new high-value fragrances and beauty products, the majority still with the price tags attached, as well as shelves full of “tester” bottles of fragrances.
In the boot of his car, price strips from the shelf edges of Boots were located, along with tools and industrial waste bags which had been used to carry the stolen property from the stores.
Further searches of Florea’s phone found multiple images of the stolen items, satellite navigation directions to the targeted stores, images of the false documents as well as images of Florea posing with large quantities of cash.