booster bag

n. a bag, sack, pouch, purse, or box used by a shoplifter to conceal or disguise merchandise. Subjects: English, Crime & Prisons, Retail

Etymological Note: to boost ‘to steal; to shoplift’ + bag

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Citations: 1927 Los Angeles Times (May 21) “Mother Faces Burglary Trial With Daughter” p. A5: Friday, the 13th inst., was unlucky for the mother-and-daughter team, according to arresting officers, who said they followed the two on that day in a downtown department store and watched them take…goods. All was stuck in a booster-bag, the officers said, and later wrapped into parcels in the ladie’s rest room and placed in a shopping bag. 1954 Grace Lewis Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) (Aug. 5) “Shoplifting Constant Threat to Stores But Detectives Must Be Very Sure!” p. 1: Fact is, she may pick up 12 or 15 different articles and put them in her shopping bag or umbrella or her booster bag on one floor and then go on to the next. A booster bag is a store-label dress or suit box with a panel or slot cut in the side. Cotton batten is put in the bottom, just in case the lifter picks up something heavy. It won’t make a clunk when it drops in. 1984 Ferdie J. Deering Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City) (Apr. 16) “Harvesting Fruits of New Morality”: Such activities are no more right than the robber with a gun, a shoplifter with a “booster bag,” or a crook making purchases by using other people’s credit cards. 1989 Henry Stancu Toronto Star (Can.) (July 12) “39 arrested in joint probe of inter-city theft ring” p. A7: During the raids, police seized booster bags worn under women’s dresses to conceal goods shoplifted from stores. “They could get articles as large as fur coats, video recorders, computers, fax machines, 20-piece bone china sets—right under the skirt and out the door.” 2004 Jay Warren WCPO-TV (Cincinatti, Ohio) (Nov. 30) “Mall Security Boosted For Holiday Shopping Season”: “One thing that I look for when I come out here—people coming in with bags empty bags, almost empty bags, refer to it as a booster bag which is a lining inside the bag but open to guard against the metal detectors,” said Detective “X.”

Posted 2 Dec 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend