Pair plead guilty after stealing thousands of pounds of chocolate from Yorkshire shops
Two men have admitted carrying out a series of shop thefts across Yorkshire other parts of the country after being arrested on the A1(M) by police.
Vasile Leonard Ionescu, 26, of Spring Road in Ipswich, and Daniel Florin Mihai, 29, of no fixed address, appeared at York Magistrates’ Court on Thursday (March 5).
They were charged with 13 retail crime offences committed in Harrogate, Knaresborough, York, North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Cambridge and Suffolk.
The pair were arrested by North Yorkshire Police’s Road Policing Group at about 10.30am on Tuesday (March 3) on the A1(M) heading north towards Dishforth following the development of intelligence reports linked to a series of thefts.
Ionescu and Mihai were taken into custody and later questioned by officers from the York and Selby Investigation Hub before being charged.
The offences included the theft of chocolate valued at £300 from the Co-op in Woodbridge, Suffolk, on February 12 and the theft of coffee from the Co-op in Fordham, Cambridge, on February 19.
A number of the offences took place across the Harrogate district on February 25.
These included the theft of chocolate and meat products valued at £400 from the Co-op on Skipton Road in Harrogate, chocolate worth £140 from the Co-op in Starbeck, and chocolate worth £391 from Sainsbury’s on Cold Bath Road.
Further incidents the same day included the theft of chocolate valued at £116.25 from Sainsbury’s on Leeds Road in Harrogate, £240 worth of chocolate from Sainsbury’s Local in Knaresborough and £138.60 worth from Tesco in Knaresborough.
The court also heard that chocolate valued at £500 was stolen from Sainsbury’s in Haxby near York on February 25.
Further offences included the theft of chocolate valued at £272.09 from the Co-op on Station Lane in Harrogate, on February 26 and chocolate valued at £673.90 from Sainsbury’s in Malton on the same day.
Chocolate worth £307 was later stolen from Tesco Express on Saltaire Road in Shipley on February 27.
The pair were also charged with the attempted theft of chocolate from Tesco on Ripon Road in Harrogate, on March 1.
Both men pleaded guilty to the offences.
They were remanded in custody and are due to be sentenced at York Magistrates’ Court on March 25.