Shoplifter walked out of Burberry store with HK$995,000 alligator coat

A shoplifter helped himself to an alligator skin coat worth nearly HK$1 million (£77,000, US$130,000) from a Burberry store in Hong Kong.

The brazen robber - who was caught on security cameras in the Burberry store in Tsim Sha Tsui - is understood to have simply lifted the trench coat off the mannequin it was on and calmly walked out of the store into the crowded Silvercord shopping mall on Canton Road at around 7.30pm on Wednesday.

Staff didn't notice it was gone until several hours later when they were doing a stock take at closing time. The police were called in at midnight. The garment had only been delivered to the store hours earlier and was not fitted with a security tag, police said. Security cameras showed a man taking the coat off the mannequin inside the three-storey store and walking out unchallenged. He was in and out of the shop - one of 14 Burberry has in the city - in around a minute, a police officer said.

Two men were arrested on Thursday afternoon. A 37-year-old man of South Asian origin was stopped in Yau Ma Tei at about 3pm. Two hours later, another man of South Asian origin, aged 31, was arrested in Tsim Sha Tsui, where officers found the coat in a bag that had been left in a roadside flower bed. The two men were arrested and detained for theft and handling of stolen goods, respectively. No charges have been laid. Police are still investigating.