Lingerie thieves nab 600 pairs of panties from Victoria's Secret in Boca Raton

Missing Panties .... Hmm

Lingerie thieves swiped hundreds of pairs of panties from the Victoria's Secret store in Boca Raton's Town Center mall, the latest twist in a series of high-end underwear heists at two Palm Beach County malls. Friday's pilfering of about 600 pairs — worth about $6,300 — comes nine days after Boca Raton police arrested two Miami-Dade women linked to an elaborate lingerie fraud targeting Victoria's Secret shops across the area since October.

Surveillance video at the store shows two women, who appear to be in their 30s, stealing the underwear around 2:30 p.m., according to Boca Raton police. Police have not said whether they suspect Friday's heist is connected to others in Boca Raton and Boynton Beach.

Underwear thieves have hit Victoria's Secret in the Boynton Beach Mall store 11 times, police said, and the Town Center store at least four times. They went after bras from Victoria's Secret's "Very Sexy" and "Miraculous" lines, as well as "The Gorgeous Collection." Police and store security personnel hunted the bra thieves for more than a month after identifying one of them as she returned stolen merchandise to a Miami Beach store.

Boca Raton police nabbed the suspected bra bandits on Feb. 29. Tysheka Pink, 29, and Katina Summerset, 39, allegedly swiped about 100 bras from the Town Center store that day. A security guard spotted Pink in the parking lot and recognized her from surveillance video. Police arrested the pair on charges of organized fraud, grand theft and retail theft. Both were released from jail on bond less than two days later.

They are accused of swiping hundreds of bras and panties, worth more than $34,000, from the Victoria's Secret stores, police said. Boynton Beach police had a warrant for Pink's arrest, and Summerset later confessed to shoplifting with Pink for several months, arrest reports said. The women returned the stolen lingerie to Victoria's Secret stores in Broward and Miami-Dade counties to get store credit or gift cards, police said.

By Alexia Campbell, Sun Sentinel

Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this report.