It started with a plea on Instagram: “Please return our mermaid.”

The owners of Holywater, the subterranean homage to all things nautical, repotted that one of their most cherished knickknacks in a bar dense with them (play eye-spy with the photo below) had been nabbed and all they wished for was her safe return.

“There’s a group of mermaid thieves roaming the streets of Tribeca,” they wrote. “Be careful out there, folks. Also, if one of these people with sticky fingers happens to be you, please return our mermaid. It has great sentimental value (and literally no street value). We’ll even buy you a round.”

 

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A post shared by HOLYWATER (@holywaternyc)

The perpetrators were caught on camera, and soon, the bar will attempt to put faces with names on credit card receipts. Commenters on the post are convinced these gals are not local, that they should be hauled into the 1st Precinct, and that “they look like they’d be the type to go to brunch and say, ‘I’m so bad’ when ordering a mimosa.”

Though perhaps Puffy’s, of course in solidarity, put it best: “Luuuuuuzzzzerrrrrs.”