Last week on the 25th September, the Koi warehouse was robbed. Aggravated burglary it was, to put a name to it. 3 extremely threatening people dressed in all black outfits and balaclavas, armed with (black spray painted Nerf) guns broke into the warehouse, and the entirety of this outrageous heist was caught on CCTV.
September 2nd, 2022 | Abby BrooksThe theft was kicked off when the owner of the warehouse was initially crept up on, tied up and robbed at gunpoint so that they could carry out the criminal operation and swipe in there, seizing every single pair of Koi shoes in there. It was clear that this heist was well-planned, and accurately executed…it makes one wonder who these mystery mischievous folk were.
Following the violent attack on our warehouse owner, the doors were kicked in and before any of the staff could even register what had happened, it was game over: the goods were already snatched and shoved into the back of their car. This operation was slowly becoming more and more serious.
Our initial reaction was that of confusion, wonder, anger…admiration? So many questions ran through our heads. How did these miscreants know how and when to attack? How did they get the warehouse address? Why were they all wearing Koi shoes? Why did they steal them? Well, they wanted money of course. And Koi shoes. Who wouldn’t?
We waited and waited, shed a few tears, not knowing what to do about our rogue shoes. How could they just walk away with our precious stock? And what were we going to do about any of our customers who wanted to buy them? We didn’t want to disappoint you all. It was pretty (extremely) embarrassing to admit to all of our customers that our shoes were stolen by 3 people with Nerf guns, too.
After what felt like years of waiting, we received a letter in the post. A ransom letter. it wasn’t directed as us though…surprisingly, it was directed at you. The criminals wrote on an ugly-ass piece of cardboard:
“HELLO FOLLOWERS OF KOI, WE HAVE BROKEN INTO YOUR WAREHOUSE + ARE KEEPING HOSTAGE ALL OF YOUR SHOES, THE RANSOM ON THE WEBSITE MUST BE PAID TO RELEASE THE SHOES, IF NOT THEY WILL BE GONE FOREVER! INTENSE SCARY MUSIC PLAYS LOVE FROM, SCARY KIDNAPPER (AKA KOI’S BIGGEST FAN)”
It then dawned on us that the only way to get back the shoes was for everyone to collaboratively pay off this said ransom, which was a pretty good deal to be honest. Although it felt unfair to get you all to help us retrieve the shoes that were stolen by people armed with Nerf guns, the ransom per pair of shoes was actually less than the retail price. I guess this means winner winner, baby!
It then dawned on us that the only way to get back the shoes was for everyone to collaboratively pay off this said ransom, which was a pretty good deal to be honest. Although it felt unfair to get you all to help us retrieve the shoes that were stolen by people armed with Nerf guns, the ransom per pair of shoes was actually less than the retail price. I guess this means winner winner, baby!
So after all of the drama, the tears, the screaming, pissing, vomiting, smashing our heads against the wall, it turned out that you could all get a pair of Kois for a big phat discount, and then in return we would get all the remaining stolen pairs back - which was a win-win situation for everyone involved…except for the robbers, who we now needed to deal with.
However, this doesn’t remove any of the trauma that the warehouse staff had to endure for this heist to be carried out, so we set out to find the culprits to have peace of mind.
We installed high-tech facial and body recognition software to place over the CCTV footage…and the people matched up with 3 very familiar faces.
It was an inside job: they were 3 members of our staff from the office. Not only were we angry, but we were also disappointed. The worst kind of anger.
We brought the hijackers into the office for questioning. It was clear that they felt no remorse for the crime they committed, and the pain they put us all through. They excused their actions by referring to it as ‘marketing’, whatever that is. Is that even a job? We literally just sell shoes so we weren’t entirely sure what relevance that had. We personally found it quite offensive.
Safe to say they got sacked afterwards!
