As pre-Christmas shopping fever begins to rise, so do the efforts of every store's least favorite customer: the shoplifter.

"The holidays are an ideal time for thieves," says Jiří Poděbradský, general manager for Samcor, a security agency that provides uniformed and undercover guards for stores, including supermarkets Albert and Delvita. "People tend to think they will get lost in the crowd and get away with stealing."

Very often that's true, despite store managers' efforts to improve security by increasing their ranks of watchmen or installing extra surveillance cameras.

Often these measures prove useless against experienced thieves, who work in well-coordinated gangs, says Petr Doležal, financial director of the Droxi drugstore chain.

"Sometimes it's like fighting windmills," he says.

While Czech retail outlets appear to be chock-full of pacing watchmen intent on monitoring a customer's every move, the Czech Republic still ranks first in the European Union in losses due to shoplifting, according to a recent survey from the British Center for Retail Research (BCRR).

In a report released this month, the BCRR said financial losses from theft fell throughout much of the EU to date this year, from 1.25 percent of total sales to 1.24 percent. The Czech Republic, by contrast, saw an increase: 1.42 percent of total sales up from 1.40. In 2005, 13 billion Kč ($59.9 million) went out the door with shoplifters.

Not surprisingly, most stores are loath to discuss specifically how much money they lose to thieves or detail the ins and outs of their onsite security.

Fear not the weak law

Part of the reason behind the apparent success of Czech shoplifters may be the country's lenient laws on theft. Shoplifting simply seems to be worth the risk.

Any theft under 5,000 Kč is characterized as a misdemeanor, not a serious crime. Shoplifters caught stealing less than this amount receive a fine that usually doesn't exceed 1,000 Kč — and that's it.

The Justice Ministry isn't planning any amendment to the laws in the near future.

Security agencies like Samcor work closely with the police, and repeat offenders end up in a database of shoplifters, but this doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent.

Another factor, according to Poděbradský, is the increasing trend among shoplifters here to work in gangs.

"What we're seeing more and more are groups of five or six," he says. "One person will be on the lookout, four will try and create a distraction, while the sixth will pack his backpack with stolen goods and then make a run for it. That's a typical scenario, but it's still hard to beat. Every store has some little crack through which you can escape."

Occasional shoplifters who work alone are much less of a threat, he says.

Even those can be a problem, though, if they have aggressive tendencies.

Doležal, the Droxi financial manager, recalls, for instance, a time when a shoplifter stabbed one of the cashiers with a needle when she tried to stop him.

And while gangs favor the holiday season, when stores are flooded with customers, individual thieves are much more likely to steal after Christmas. "It's when people run out of money and are often driven to steal out of desperation," says Poděbradský.

Crafty Czechs

According to Doležal, Droxi, like most stores, devotes about 1 percent of its budget to security. Last year at Droxi, losses from shoplifting amounted to 1.5 percent of total sales.

Doležal says Droxi doesn't plan to increase the number of its uniformed watchmen in preparation for the holidays. It's important to stay vigilant all year, he says.

Most stores, however, increase the number of guards they employ at Christmastime.

At Debenhams, a British-owned department store on Wenceslas Square, the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy calls for more cashiers as well as more watchmen. Blanka Beranová, the store's assistant manager, says, however, that even this increased surveillance rarely stops the crafty shoplifter.

"We're constantly amazed by what people are able to come up with," she says. "Some thieves are very creative."

One of the most common tricks used by thieves, she says, involves coating the inside of a backpack or coat pockets with aluminum foil to avoid setting off security detectors. Other shoplifters like to create a false bottom inside the bag they're stuffing with the loot, so that if they are stopped by security, it looks as though the bag is empty.

Most stores, though, would rather not elaborate on shoplifters' techniques. "We don't want to give people any ideas, if you know what I mean," says Kateřina Pecinová, spokesman for Ahold, the company that operates the Albert and Hypernova supermarket chains in the Czech Republic.

The tendency to shoplift cuts across all age groups, according to Pecinová. She says that, alongside gangs of teenagers, who steal just for fun, there are more and more thieving pensioners as well.