Thieves strike at popular hotel destination
Posted on 15 November 2007 by Josh Dhaliwal
A young man gets arrested for stealing from a hotel doesn’t usually make headline news.
Theft from hotels apparently cost the business upwards of $100 million a year just in the U.S. alone.
Although there are no official figures the most common item taken is the obvious beautifully soft towels. Holiday Inn apparently loses 560,000 towels a year.
Stayers have also been partial to bathrobes, the odd ashtray and I am sure that more than the odd person has taken an item from the mini bar on checking out and not declared it. Amongst some of the more unusual items to have gone missing in recent years include toilet seats, lamps and on one occasion the hotel owners dog.
A number of key factors contribute to this theft being particularly unique and therefore headline news. For starters the thief is aged only 17 years, the value of his loot was 4000 Euros, the hotel has 6 million virtual residents and he stole…furniture.
The Dutch teenager was arrested for stealing furniture from rooms on Habbo Hotel, the online social networking site. The stolen items were then moved into the burglars own room using stolen usernames and passwords. A total of five other 15 year olds have also been accused according to the BBC website.
According to Sulake, the company that created and runs Habbo Hotel despite the stolen items being ‘virtual’ the crime is a real one as the items were paid for by their rightful owners using real money.
Tags | furniture, habbo, hotel, online, SNS, social networking, theft
