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It may have taken this brazen thief a mere few seconds to steal Feroza Trimm's handbag, but days later she is still traumatised by the events.
The incident happened at midday on Sunday, May 13 at Mr Price in Galleria Mall in Amanzimtoti.
Trimm's daughter Shamz shared the clip on Facebook in an attempt to help her mother get back some of her belongings. The thief made off with her handbag, which contained two cellphones, a power bank and WiFi router, her wallet containing R400 and numerous store cards.
She and an accomplice also managed to take R13 000 from her bank accounts.
In the video clip, a woman is seen taking Trimm's handbag from the trolley, while her one-year-old grandchild looks on. The thief then hides the bag under an item of clothing.
Trimm, 51, says she and her daughter took the children out for the day to the mall, before Ramadaan begins this week.
She was about to take her two granddaughters outside, so that their mother could continue shopping at leisure and placed her handbag in the trolley.
She said she didn't leave it lying in plain sight.
"There was a shoebox in the trolley. I lifted the shoebox and put my handbag underneath it," Trimm told News24.
She turned for an instant to look for her 3-year-old grandchild when the thief struck.
In an attempt to block the thief from accessing her accounts, Trimm headed to the bank. But she was too late.
"They had already withdrawn cash from the Standard Bank and FNB ATMs just minutes apart," Trimm said.
"We just came back from a holiday in India and I had such beautiful photos of our trip."
She also had a video of emergency surgery her husband had received in India – something she wanted to keep.
"But all of those are gone now."
She says it took her the whole of Monday to try and stop all of her store cards to make sure the thief did not get her hands on anything else.
Apart from being angry, Trimm is having difficulty sleeping since the incident.
"I wake up at 02:00 in the morning and I can't fall asleep again," she told News24. "Especially after seeing the video of the incident. That's affecting me more."
"It happened right under my nose."
However, Trimm added that it could have been worse. "What if I caught her red-handed and she pulled a knife on me?"
She said she has opened a theft case and intends on returning to the shopping centre to ask for CCTV footage from outside of the mall, in the hope of catching the perpetrators.
