If the sneaker fits . . . steal it.
Pricey shoes on display at stores around town may seem safe from theft — after all, who would want to steal just one shoe?
But sneaky sneaker thieves have found a way to get around this: stealing left-foot shoes from a display at one store and stealing their right counterparts from another.
“They know before they steal which stores are selling which styles and sizes, left and right. They calculate before they come in,” said Jennifer Lee, 52, owner of the Sneaker Box in The Bronx, one of many stores around the city hit by the crime spree.
The thieves capitalize on a little-known industry fact: Some stores put only left shoes on display, while others display only rights.
“They go to Foot Locker, which has all right-sided shoes. Then they come here because we display left-sided shoes,” said Salissou Mohamam, 40, manager of Michael K., a SoHo sneaker store.
He says he loses about 50 display shoes a year to the thieves.
“They take what matches, put it in their bags and go. It’s only the hot stuff they want to take,” Mohamam said.
The problem has gotten so bad that shoe-store owners from The Bronx to Brooklyn have had to put their merchandise on lockdown — tying shoes to displays so no one will walk off with them.
The footwear fiends have not only figured where to get their rights and lefts; they even know where they can get matching sizes.
“They figure out who’s selling what,” said Danny Song, 49, manager of Bronx Elite Footwear on the Grand Concourse. “Then they come in here and steal the left shoe, and steal the right shoe somewhere else.”
Harry Singh, 30, owner of Sneaker Plaza in The Bronx. said, “They know what to steal because they live around here and go to all the stores to see who has what shoe in which size.”
Abbas Diallo, owner of Diallo Cap in Harlem, which sells sneakers and baseball caps, has locked 15 of his top-selling sneakers in a display case to stop thefts at his store, which began in January.
At first, he suspected teens, then he caught a man in his 40s trying to steal a right-side $350 Penny Hardaway Nike Foamposite.
“I wasn’t paying attention. At first, I asked myself why would someone steal one shoe. Now I know,” he told The Post.
Law-enforcement sources said the criminal trend was so new that many had never heard of it.
But an employee of Footaction USA on Fulton Street and Gallatin Place in Downtown Brooklyn was very aware of the thefts.
“It’s happening to us a lot,” he said. “People come in and steal a display shoe and then go to Foot Locker or Jimmy Jazz and find the matching shoe to steal.”
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