A corporal with the Harford County Sheriff?s Office pulled a van over for speeding just before midnight Saturday and discovered nine large bags stuffed full of Victoria?s Secret merchandise ? almost $50,000 worth, with price tags and anti-theft devices still attached, said a sheriff?s office spokesman.
There were 406 bras, 118 bottles of perfume and hundreds of panties, pants and sweaters, though only a few dresses and pairs of shoes, said Lt. James Eyler.
The occupants of the 2006 Ford van told Cpl. Donald Gividen they bought the merchandise in Virginia and were taking it to New York to resell, Eyler said, but they couldn?t provide any proof of purchase.
They also had a “booster bag” in the van, Eyler said. A tool of the trade among professional shoplifters, booster bags are lined with heavy foil that interferes with anti-theft devices working properly, he said.
The Sheriff?s Office seized all the merchandise.
Now it faces the challenge of figuring out where it all came from exactly.
No criminal charges can be brought unless the store or stores who suffered the loss can be found, Eyler said. Probably multiple stores were hit, he said.
“For all we know, they could have started in Virginia and worked their way up,” he said of the suspects.
So far, only the driver ? 41-year-old Luz Elizabeth Solari-Lonandes, of Queens, N.Y. ? has been charged with any offense: driving 79 mph in a 55 mph zone, Eyler said.
He said Gividen spotted her while running radar on Route 40 just west of Route 543 in Belcamp. Route 40 runs parallel to Interstate 95 in that area, he said, and Solari-Lonandes had apparently gotten off the interstate because of an accident. Gividen found the merchandise after asking for permission to search the vehicle because his suspicions had been raised by conflicting answers he received to some of his questions, Eyler said. He couldn?t say why someone with contraband would consent to a search.
Solari-Lonandes has no phone number listed in her name in New York City and could not be reached for comment.
The three men in the vehicle, ages 24 to 28, were supposedly cousins of Solari-Lonandes, Eyler said. Their names were not released.
Victoria?s Secret, based in Columbus, Ohio, operates about 1,000 stores across the country, according to a Web site sponsored by Limited Brands, which owns the company.
No one from the national office returned calls for comment Tuesday.
