Stealing spree: Recidivist thief Elmira Rafiee convicted for barcode-swapping plot

A recidivist thief with 79 previous convictions hatched a plan to make her own barcodes in an attempt to steal expensive items from stores including Bunnings, Supercheap Auto and Mitre 10.

Elmira Rafiee removed barcodes from high-end items and replaced them with ones from cheaper goods so she did not have to pay as much. Then, she would go back and return or exchange them for the original price — in one example pocketing nearly $2000.

The experienced con artist’s stealing spree saw her journey the length of the country and cost businesses thousands of dollars.

”You’ve ripped off a lot of people,” Tauranga District Court judge Louis Bidois told the 34-year-old when she appeared in court on Monday after earlier pleading guilty to seven counts of obtaining by deception, three of using a document for pecuniary advantage and one of theft.

The charges relate to 11 separate incidents Supercheap Auto, Bunnings Warehouse and Mitre 10 stores across the country, spanning from November 2020 to March 2021.

Rafiee, also known as Aaliyah, is an experienced con artist, stealing nearly $50,000 from unwitting buyers on TradeMe in 2011 by promising iPhones and iPads that didn’t exist. She would buy courier bags so she could provide buyers with tracking numbers, despite never intending on sending a thing.

She was sentenced to 200 hours community work and ordered to pay $48,000 in reparation after that offending.

For her latest offending, Rafiee was deemed to have a high likelihood of reoffending and a pre-sentence report suggested prison was the most suitable sentence.

She was sentenced on Monday to six months’ home detention.

According to the summary of facts, Rafiee’s strategy was to travel to big-box retail stores and swap out barcodes for ones from cheaper items before making her purchase.

She then travelled to another store branch to return the item in full, showing fake bank statements or receipts as “proof” of purchase.

Sometimes, she would print off her own barcodes and use those.

The offending began at Supercheap Auto in Mount Maunganui, where she successfully swapped the barcode from a $249 winch with that of a $1299 winch.

She then went to the nearby Tauranga branch claiming it was faulty, received a refund, used some of the funds to buy a camera system and pocketed the rest.

Three weeks later, Rafiee went to Bunnings Warehouse in Mount Maunganui. There, she used her own printed barcodes on a set of $49 fairy lights, which rung up on the till at $5. But the checkout operator was suspicious, declining to make the sale.

She went back into the car park, returning minutes later. This time, she placed a barcode worth $245 onto a Makita tool worth $1699, with a checkout operator allowing the sale.

Nearly a fortnight later, Rafiee was in Wellington, where she travelled to a Bunnings Warehouse in Lyall Bay.

There, she collected a handful of tools and took them to the counter, claiming she was returning them. Staff declined to give her a refund with no proof of purchase, but she walked out with two nail guns valued at $1599.

Later that day, she travelled to the nearby Bunnings branch on Tory St, asking for a refund on the stolen nail guns. The store’s supervisor refused.

Elmira Rafiee, pictured here in 2011, leaves the High Court in Auckland after being convicted of conning buyers on Trade Me and Sella out of thousands of dollars by selling goods that never arrived. Photo / Dean Purcell

Over the following three weeks, Rafiee targeted another three Supercheap Auto branches in Mount Maunganui, Tauranga and Hamilton.

She purchased a swivel, garage creeper and another winch, the latter of which was worth $1299 - Rafiee paid $5 for it.

On March 23 last year, Rafiee targeted the Mitre 10 Mega store in Henderson where she attempted to return around $2500 worth of goods stolen from Bunnings. Staff provided her with a refund, but later realised the store did not actually stock the returned items.

The next day, Rafiee was in Christchurch where she visited a Mitre 10 Mega in Papanui, using clearance barcodes worth $100 found in one section of the store to purchase $1460 worth of shower-related goods.

‘You’ve ripped off a lot of people’ - judge

In sentencing Rafiee, Judge Bidois received a pre-sentence report considering his options for sentencing.

“You are assessed at high risk of reoffending, and the [sentence] recommendation is one of prison,” Bidois said.

“You’ve ripped off a lot of people.”

The report also considered Rafiee’s suitability for home detention.

“There’s an issue as to whether to occupants of the address are suitable; there’s an issue if you are suitable,” Bidois said.

“But there are more prospects of you being helped in the community than in jail.”

The judge began with a starting point of 33 months’ imprisonment, with a 33 per cent discount for Rafiee’s guilty plea, taking the sentence down to 22 months.

Four months were discounted due to Rafiee’s time in custody, with another six-month discount for her 16 months on electronically-monitored bail.

With the sentence now at 12 months’ imprisonment, Bidois said despite the concerns, “it’s best you serve a sentence of home detention. It’s still a punitive sentence.”

Rafiee was sentenced to six months’ home detention and a further six months’ post-release conditions, and ordered to pay $8,356 in reparation.