The Store Thief "Riddle"

To me, this is a very simple problem. Larceny was committed in the amount of $100.

What’s that (general) you say? That’s not what the question asked? Exactly. The question was so imprecisely worded that it cannot be answered without playing some amount of word games. The game is easiest if you indicate your assumptions as to meaning, implicitly or explicitly, and go from there. I take this to be a problem in criminal law. Take it as a problem in economics, accounting, metaphysics, supply chain management, etc, etc and you may well come up with a different answer. Provided you make it clear how you are evaluating the problem, within what context, and give an answer that follows from that framework, you can only be wrong if you think you have the one acceptable answer.