Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

With cyberthieves getting increasingly more sophisticated, loss prevention teams need to continually remind management that most of the attacks they’re fighting are as low-tech as possible. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not getting creative, as Wal-Mart execs at one of their Arizona stores have now discovered.

In an tactic that we’ll refer to as the nesting doll attack—named after the Russian nesting dolls, which include increasingly smaller dolls hiding yet smaller dolls—one Nevada would-be-shoplifter decided that a legitimate barcode matching to a legitimate product was sufficient to escape suspicion.

Micah John Boivin was arrested after Safford Police said Wal-Mart associates watched as Boivin, according to The Eastern Arizona Courier, “placed a Sony Playstation 3 game console into an aquarium.”

Further investigation found that he had earlier used a clever variation of this technique, when he placed a Microsoft X-Box inside a Crock-Pot and then—this is our favorite part—”taped the box back together with Wal-Mart’s tape.”

By using the store’s own tape—which is unlikely guarded very well—that added a wonderful touch of legitimacy that the resealing was done by another store associate.

In both cases, Boivin removed the anti-theft sensor from the hidden item, while logically enough leaving it in place for the bigger container. You have to ask yourself: Would this work at one of my stores?