Mum left shocked and distraught after Christmas gifts were stolen
A young mum from Melbourne is "fuming" after a pile of Christmas gifts were stolen from her front porch.
Mother-of-three Jasmine Yoong captured the young man allegedly taking five presents from her front door, which were due to be picked up by a courier and delivered to her friends.
CCTV video captured the man stealing gifts from the front of the home in Melbourne’s west on Wednesday, holding them close to his chest before he threw them into his car and made a break for it.
After discovering the footage of her gifts being stolen, Yoong decided to turn to TikTok in an attempt to get her presents back before going to the police.
“I was so angry in that moment, I was so ... I was fuming,” she told 7News.
The 27-year-old mum took to social media to expose the opportunistic crook.
“All that hard work for you to come and steal them off my front door when the postman was collecting them, and then he couldn’t collect them. Why? Because you stole them,” she said in the video, which reached more than two million views in one day.
“All I want is my five parcels back.”
Yoong admitted the idea may “sound stupid” but she hoped the video would find him.
“My initial thought was, all right , let me go to the police straightaway,” she said.
“I thought, well, what can I do to actually increase my chances of getting it back. I’ve seen TikTok do some pretty crazy things."
“I didn’t want to ruin his life if it was just a snap of the moment decision, you know. I wanted to give him a chance to do the right thing, make it right.”
Her TikTok video reached a worker at a nearby McDonalds, who said they had seen the man in fast food restaurant just before the presents were stolen.
“He was apparently causing a ruckus, disrupting diners,” Yoong said.
Yoong contacted her local police to report the theft after the parcels were not returned.
Her message to the crook is simple: “Just don’t take from others.”
“It’s just a shortcut to steal from others ... everyone needs to work hard to get what they have,” she said.
Image credits: 7News