A serial shoplifter was so desperate for cash that she pretended to have cancer and used other people’s discarded receipts to ask for refunds on goods she never paid for.

Anna Salari, who is also known as Tracey Salari, is a recidivist shoplifter who has served a handful of jail terms over the years.

But that time behind bars appears to have done little to deter the 57-year-old, who spent nearly a year ripping off more than 20 different businesses across the Waikato and Auckland.

She targeted those stores nearly 60 times, stealing items worth a total of just under $25,000.

The breadth of her thievery and skulduggery was so vast, it took Judge Tini Clark more than 20 minutes to read out the five different tabs of summary of facts documents detailing each of her acts.

There was also confusion in court as to exactly how many charges she faced; the judge counted 59, the police 58, and her lawyer, 57.

The court heard Salari was persistent. Her modus operandi was relatively simple but audacious; she’d simply charge items back to organisations like the Hamilton City Council, or walk into a store, grab an item, then show a used receipt and ask for a refund.

On some occasions, she’d write a note as a staff member had their back turned, to help confirm the legitimacy of her fraud.

This month she appeared for sentencing in the Hamilton District Court, where her lawyer, Stephanie Penn, faced the task of trying to keep her out of prison.

‘I’m a cancer patient’

Salari admitted 59 charges: 15 charges of obtaining by deception, four of attempting to obtain by deception, six of theft over $1000, and the remainder involving thefts and attempted thefts under $1000.

The timeframe was over 10 months between December 2023 and October 2024, while 10 offences happened while she was subject to post-home detention conditions.

She most commonly targeted retail outlets, usually The Warehouse, Bunnings, Woolworths, Briscoes, Mitre 10, Harvey Norman, and Farmers.

However, other small businesses and franchises were also hit; Backdoor, Pet Doctors, NZ Safety Blackwoods, Hunting and Fishing, Top Town Wheels and Tyres, Foot Forward shoes, Tony’s Tyres, Oxfords Clothing, Comins Pharmacy Cambridge, Health 2000, Whole Heart foods Hamilton, Country Providore, Bed Bath and Table, Farmlands, Rogerson Stables, and Resene in Hamilton.

While Salari was mostly successful, she faced charges of attempting to obtain by deception or theft after staff or security picked up on her antics and either denied her a refund or recognised her and asked her to leave.

That happened at Bunnings, Hamilton South, on December 11, 2023, where she asked for a paint to be made up and then asked for a refund of $55. The staff refused because the details didn’t match and she became angry, saying her husband had earlier bought the goods.

Security in The Warehouse also busted her after watching her put $59 worth of items in a trolley, then, using a receipt, ask for a refund.

Another time she grabbed an $800 Dyson vacuum cleaner and simply walked out without paying.

It was July 6 when she walked around the Mitre 10 Te Rapa car park picking up receipts off the ground and the rubbish bin before walking inside with an empty trolley, looking for the items.

She asked a staff member for help to get spray paint and a floor rug before going to the customer desk to return them both.

The rug happened to have been bought by a staff member, and she claimed to be their mother, but told them she’d leave that and just get the refund for the spray paint, for which she was duly paid $76.32.

On August 9, she rang Harvey Norman Te Rapa for an update on the arrival of a bunk bed and asked for a refund. In store, she presented a bank statement as proof of identity, but couldn’t present the same Eftpos card that was used to buy the $600 bed.

She became “agitated and caused a scene” when staff denied her a refund before claiming she was a cancer patient. Staff eventually succumbed and refunded her $600.

On two occasions, she booked up items on HCC’s account at NZ Safety Blackwoods, totalling nearly $1500.

All up, her thefts totalled $24,138.98.

‘She’s rehabilitating herself’

Judge Clark asked Penn why she was seeking up to 80% in discounts for her client.

Penn replied that she’d put “up to” 80%, to allow for her guilty pleas, tough upbringing, rehabilitation, remorse, and her alcohol and drug report.

Salari had spent most of her time since her arrest at the Grace Foundation and had done so well that they’d offered her a job, so she’d enrolled in a course at the Open Polytechnic.

Serial shoplifter Anna Salari. Photo / NZ Police

Judge Clark was quick to note Salari had gone through the “one of the most rigorous treatments”, the year-long Alcohol and Drug Treatment Court at Waitākere District Court.

Salari did, “on paper at least”, appear a reformed character.

“It’s a little early to say that she is an example for others to follow when she is sitting in the dock,” the judge said, drily.

Penn urged the judge, if she got down to a sentence of 24 months jail or less, to convert it to home detention.

But Judge Clark was unimpressed that Salari continued offending while on post-detention conditions.

“She has just carried on, without even blinking,” she said.

Penn said Hamilton was “not the best place” for her client, but said if she got home detention, the Grace Foundation would give her a bed to serve her sentence.

She also had a friend who had a property in Whitianga and offered reparation at $30 a week.

‘This was not drug-addled offending’

In her pre-sentence report, Salari claimed to have been using meth when offending, but Judge Clark wasn’t having it.

“I have to say that I find that hard to believe, and that is on the basis of the sophistication of this offending.”

While on the one hand it wasn’t hard to do what Salari did; you go into a shop and pretend to have bought something and ask for a refund.

“Sometimes you are successful and sometimes you are not.

“But there were a number of times ... where I considered that Ms Salari’s determination to succeed in her fraudulent and dishonest behaviour was actually quite significant ... she was fully cognisant of what she was doing.”

Anna Salari, also known as Tracey Salari, was jailed for 17 months when she was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court last week on 59 fraud and theft-related charges. Photo / Belinda Feek

“Time and time again, Ms Salari, by her behaviour, demonstrated, in my view, a level of planning, premeditation, some form of deliberation in terms of the way that she undertook her offending.

“This was not drug-addled offending.

“There was repeated offending over a sustained period of time, clearly for her own financial benefit.

“She was extremely aware of what she was doing.”

‘Today is the day, Ms Salari’

After completing her home detention sentence, but then on release conditions, “she just carried on”.

“For months, and months, making victims of a large number of people, obtaining a benefit to the extent of about $24,000, and really the only reason she stopped was because she was remanded in custody.”

Salari’s criminal history dated back to 1987, and she’d been jailed seven times.

“This was a concerted effort by Ms Salari with a number of characteristics of the offending which tells me she was utterly determined to get her money.

“She was persistent in her efforts and on some occasions went away and came back on the same day to revictimise the same business.”

Judge Clark took an overall starting point of four years and eight months before applying discounts for the defendant’s guilty pleas, background, rehabilitation efforts and remorse, totalling 60%.

She got down to 17 months’ jail but refused to convert that into home detention, and also refused to grant Salari leave to apply for home detention at a later date.

“Today is the day, Ms Salari, that you are held accountable for all of the harm that you have done to others.”

Judge Clark declined to order reparation because she didn’t believe Salari would pay it.

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.