South Korea has CCTVs all over the place (especially in the cities), and even small-scale robbery is treated as a very serious crime that often it's not worth the risk.

It’s not only the CCTVs, haha. In Korea, even petty theft is culturally treated as a pretty serious offense. People generally see stealing itself as crossing a big line.

yeah it's not just the CCTVs, very ingrained culturally somehow, at least for this type of theft (stealing personal stuff from cafes/restaurants/etc)