Stealing is an unfortunate reality even in this hobby, and over the years we’ve almost lost count how many times local fish stores have been blatantly robbed. Strangely almost all of the incidents have the robbers clearly caught on camera. Like seriously what is up with these thieves? You can keep aquariums, but you don’t have the brains to not clearly show your face to the world? Their stupidity is good news for the victimized fish stores, but it certainly doesn’t bode to well for all the corals since their survivals depends on the new “owners”. And yes, as hardcore aquarists the health of the coral immediately crosses our minds.

This particular incident took place in a fish store in Tonawanda, N.Y. were at one point during the day the store owners noticed 300 dollars of corals missing. Checking the security tapes it had become clear they were robbed. Five suspects including three men, a women and a young child setup the theft distracting the store employee while grabbing the coral. A video camera was turned away from the coral holding system, but a secondary camera a couple feet away managed to capture the theft (just a slight mistake in a pretty elaborate thievery). The video can be found on on the WIVB 4 website here. If you recognize any of the suspects the City of Tonawanda Police can be reached at 692-2121. Let’s hope that like previous cases they can catch these tools (sorry for our language)

[via WIVB 4]