A Japanese restaurant in Georgia is asking the public for help identifying a man who was captured on security footage appearing to take items from a wallet left at the front counter. The restaurant, Bobo Izakaya, located in Atlanta’s Toco Hills neighborhood, shared the surveillance footage on TikTok and the clip quickly went viral.
The incident reportedly happened on Sunday at around 4 p.m. The footage showed a man wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt, dark pants and a baseball cap walking into the restaurant and heading straight toward the front counter.
After a brief exchange with the hostess, the employee stepped away from the desk, leaving the man standing there alone. It didn’t take long for his attention to turn to a wallet sitting on the counter.
The man picked it up and appeared to remove several cards or other small items before putting the wallet back where he found it. He then slipped what he had taken into his pockets, occasionally looking around the restaurant as he did so.
Rather than immediately leaving, however, the man remained at the counter. When the employee returned, the two briefly spoke again before he eventually turned around and walked out of the restaurant.
According to the restaurant, the wallet did not belong to the hostess but was accidentally left behind by a customer. The wallet’s owner had already contacted the restaurant and was on the way to retrieve it, so staff had left it on the counter for pickup.
Viewers React to the Surveillance Footage
Netizens reacting to the footage in the comments section were livid. “People suck, you can’t trust anyone,” one person wrote. Another exclaimed, “Some people are just HORRIBLE!” A third remarked, “Definitely not his first time. He was so casual about it.”
Some of the responses took on racial undertones, with commenters suggesting they had expected the person shown in the footage to be Black.
“Anyone shocked? I will wait…….yup that’s what I thought! Same old same old!” one comment read. “I didn’t even need to watch the whole thing. I knew who was walking through the door,” another said. “We knew exactly what he would look like before we saw him. I’m black and even I’m fatigued at this point,” someone else added.
Other viewers questioned the restaurant’s decision to leave the wallet somewhere customers could easily see and reach it. “Why would you leave a wallet in plain view on the counter?” a viewer asked. “You should have had a more secure place for found items instead of having them laying out for anyone to grab,” another chimed in.
The restaurant later revealed that it had since reported the incident to the police. Management says it hopes someone who sees the footage will recognize the man, and is offering a free meal to anyone who can help identify him.
