A thief who turned a West Phoenix store into his personal cash cow, hitting it 31 times in just over a year, has been corralled by the law. Christian Mayson Kaya, 22, methodically looted the store using a backpack or handbasket and sly escapes through the fire exits to haul off everything from clothing to luggage to hoverboards, authorities say.

The indictment of Kaya came down last week on a laundry list of 31 counts of Organized Retail Theft, confirming the savvy criminal racked up more than $7,000 from his month-after-month spree between February 2023, and April 2024, the Maricopa County Attorney's Office announced. On top of his latest capers, Kaya was already wanted on warrants for dodging sentencing on a child abuse case, and a drug possession case.

Citing the indictment, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell highlighted the broader impact of such crimes. "Every instance of organized retail crime creates a ripple effect that trickles down to the wallets of everyday people,” she said. Mitchell lauded the vigilant work of the Phoenix Police investigators who patched together the pieces of this criminal jigsaw.

According to the police, the accused had a calculated plan: he used the anonymity of a common shopper to amass a trove of items each visit before slipping out the back, unnoticed by staff already stretched thin on the frontline of retail warfare. His alleged resale of these goods turned a profit that came, at a steep price to the community, Mitchell implied.

Kaya's charges are no petty crime; a Class Four Felony in Arizona carries a potential prison sentence. As the case against him builds, the County Attorney's Office appears set on demonstrating that the law will clamp down on those who mistake criminal enterprise for entrepreneurship.