Nitul Sharma: Thief on student visa ran baby formula racket
A poor Springvale student on a bridging visa couldn’t get work during COVID, so turned to nicking tins of ‘white gold’ to get by.
South East
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A prolific thief ran a supermarket stealing racket nicking thousands of dollars’ worth of baby formula, vitamins and electric toothbrushes, a court has heard.
Nitul Sharma knocked off the in-demand items from Coles and Woolworths in suburbs all across the southeast and then flogged them to “known handlers” for cash.
The 28-year-old Springvale student, who is con a bridging visa and sharing a house with his pregnant girlfriend, was on a community corrections order at the time for similar crimes.
He pleaded guilty to a raft of theft, deception-related and drug charges at the online Dandenong Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
The court heard in August and September last year Sharma would go into supermarkets with a trolley, a box and a swag of green enviro bags.
He would then fill up the box with baby formula tins and pack the bags with expensive vitamins and electric toothbrushes before pushing the trolley out without paying.
He hit supermarkets in Rosebud, Monbulk, Seville, Cranbourne North, Donvale, Cheltenham, Brighton and Hampton Park.
On some days he did multiple heists at neighbouring Coles and Woolies, sometimes just minutes apart, and over the two months he took more than $7000 worth of goods.
Sharma also stole a bank card from a man at a Springvale park, using it to buy gift cards, and took another bank card from a McDonald’s customer which he used to purchase groceries.
He also did a runner from a taxi without paying, and was caught with drugs in a car after being seen swerving all over the Eastern Freeway.
When he was arrested he admitted the thefts, telling police he would sell the goods on the street “to known handlers for cash” which he used for living expenses.
His defence lawyer said the thefts were “essentially one course of conduct” and he did it for financial reasons, not to feed a drug addiction.
She said he had already spent a combined 53 days on remand and requested he be released on a new corrections order.
Magistrate Suzette Dootjes said the offending was “persistent and relatively sophisticated”.
“He knew what he was doing,” Ms Dootjes said.
“It is not a good reason that he said he just needed the money.”
Sharma was remanded in custody and will be sentenced on Feb 17.
