Watch delivery driver bring food to California lobby — and leave with stolen packages

A woman in the lobby of a building opens the locked door for a food delivery driver in a video posted by Berkeley, California, police.

The driver, carrying a drink and plastic bag, loiters in the lobby, stealing glances at holiday packages piled by mail slots, until the other woman exits, the video shows.

Completing her meal delivery, the woman returns to the lobby and loads packages into a U.S. Postal Service bin, the video shows.

Noticing that she missed a few deliveries, the “porch pirate” pauses for a moment to consider adding them to her load, then exits with her purloined packages, the video shows.

The woman loads the stolen packages into a light-colored car parked at the curb with its blinkers on and drives away, the video shows.

The thefts took place at 6:50 pm. Saturday at 2117 Haste St., police wrote on YouTube. They asked that anyone with information call (510) 981-5737.

“We’ve had our fair share of package thefts before but this is definitely a fairly new one where someone delivering food to the building stole half the building’s packages in one day,” said Ethan Cheng, who manages the building, KRON reported.

So-called “porch pirate” thefts of packages are endemic during the holiday season, with more than 90,000 packages vanishing daily in New York City alone, The New York Times reports.

This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 10:02 AM.