Hair Theft

Hair theft is the crime of stealing human hair, typically by surreptitiously cutting it from a victim in a public place or by mugging a victim and shearing their head, driven by commercial demand for hair used in wigs, hairpieces and sexual fetish items. Long-haired women have most often been targeted, with men and children targeted less frequently, and hair has at times carried substantial commercial value, worth twice its weight in silver in the mid-19th century. The crime has been documented across North America, Europe, Asia and Australasia over at least 300 years.