Nick Puglin has been promoted to Director of Central Investigations and Organized Retail Crime for Macy's. Previously, Nick worked at Macy's as the District Security Director for three years, the DVP of Training and Investigations for two years, and the Senior Regional Director - Texas for one year. Before joining Macy's, Nick spent almost 20 years at Foley's as the Regional Director. Congratulations Nick!

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The British Retail Consortium's latest Annual Crime Survey found the riots of last August had an impact on over 20,000 retail staff. A third of the stores affected said their employees were exposed to physical violence and nearly 40 per cent reported verbal abuse. More than eight out of ten businesses said their staff were now afraid of future violence, including reprisals. The BRC says the high proportion of perpetrators who were made to appear in court has sent out the right message about the importance of tackling retail crime. This is in contrast to the high number of fines commonly handed out for shop theft, more than half of which are never paid. (Source stockmarketwire.com)

Supervalu to cut 800 jobs by Feb 25. The reductions will not affect store-level workers but will impact all company offices, including current positions and open jobs that will not be filled, Supervalu noted. (Source supermarketnews.com)

Menards home improvement chain has agreed to settle a race discrimination case for $1 million. About 700 employees, managers and assistant managers, had claimed that Menards had passed over for promotions because of their race. Menards reached the agreement with an arbitrator and denies any wrong doing but chose to settle because it was a "wise business decision." (Source htrnews.com)

Former fund manager that benefited from insider information of the Albertson's grocery stores breakup ordered to pay $8.3 million Already serving a 6 year federal prison sentence for securities fraud regarding insider information he used to make $7 million on Albertson's stock during the breakup he now has to pay $8.3 million in fines. (Source supermarketnews.com)

Hackers get busted extorting Symantec for their own source code wanting $50,000 to return the stolen blueprints. They just didn't know it was the Fed's operating a sting on them when they tried to extort $50,000 from Symantec. They had stolen the blueprints of one of Symantec's flagship products and were emailing their terms when the fed's jumped in and busted them. Interestingly enough the hackers group called Lord of Dharmaraja was affiliated with Anonymous. (Source huffingtonpost.com)

The counterfeiting problem is getting so bad that one designer, Barbour, is launching a Google campaign to hopefully crack down on counterfeiting their goods. The company has partnered with search marketing agency, Search Laboratory, to develop a campaign across Google’s paid search network to educate people searching for the Barbour brand about the pitfalls of buying a counterfeit item. (Source theretailbulletin.com)

H-E-B Grocery files suit against Atlanta man for buying the H-E-B.xxx domain. When the .xxx designations went live late last year as a way to distinguish adult-entertainment sites, many companies not part of the adult-entertainment industry moved quickly to block domains affiliated with their brands. On Dec. 1, the grocer blocked H-E-B.xxx, according to MySA.com. A company spokeswoman wouldn't comment on whether the grocer would block other domains that incorporate the brand's name, such as MyHEB.xxx, HEBgrocery.xxx, and HEBsucks.xxx. The grocery chain owns the .com versions of those domains. (Source csnews.com)

Store employee of Island Outfitters steals 159 guns valued at over $250,000 Working at the store for over 5 years in Vancouver, Canada, the employee was trusted by the owner until an inventory showed the shortage and police were able to track it thru the long-gun registry. It appears the man allegedly doctored the registration forms after he ordered the guns through the store to make it look as if he bought them. (Source vancouversun.com)

Shoplifting stop for 4 cans of beer ends with 3 employees in the hospital. Store associates were punched, bitten and threatened with a broken bottle. These two Iowa women accused of shoplifting four cans of beer were not giving up easily. Upon the arrival of the police, the suspect kicked the officer in the knee and has also been charged with damaging the squad car. Damage to the LP office included a computer monitor, a television, a phone, a printer, numerous bottles, light bulbs and file cabinets. All three store associates are recovering and back to work. (source desmoineregister.com)


Thieves steal five charity boxes from Indiana Wal-Marts. The Children’s Miracle Network supports the families of sick children, assisting with the expenses of their care, these two suspects apparently didn’t care. Police are now searching Elkart and Saint Joseph Counties in Indiana with a partial plate and description. Wal-Mart has notified all stores in the area, and will make a donation to the Riley Hospital and The Children’s Miracle Network. (source southbendtribune.com)



Three men arrested after police say they tried to steal 130 tires from Pep Boys. The rented box truck contained 130 stolen tires valued at nearly $12,000. One suspect who planned the burglary is a former employee of Pep Boys who was recently terminated. (source fredericknespost.com)





Phoenix Jewelry store robbery caught on tape. Three masked men enter with rifles and shotguns as ten customers and employees seek cover in the Jared store. No one was hurt in the robbery, but police have little to go on at this time. (source azfamily.com)



Part-time Bank Teller accused of $80,000 in identity theft. Targeting four customers, the teller was making unauthorized withdrawals from at least four accounts. The theft of $3,000 to $8,000 at a time was noticed by the customers who informed the bank. (source nbcphiladelphia.com)

Nick Puglin has been promoted to Director of Central Investigations and Organized Retail Crime for Macy's.
Joseph Carteret was named Market LP Manager at the Gap Inc./Old Navy.
Chad Lancaster was named Loss Prevention Consultant at HS Brands International.
Robert Walsh was named Security Manager at Macy's Logistics and Operations Center.
Shane Davis was promoted to Store Team Leader at Target.

How you leave an employer and how you start at a new employer are very critical segments of time because they can tend to label executives and those labels can last a very long time. Interesting how short the time periods are relative to an executive's actual career. But the exiting process and the on-boarding periods leave long term impressions that follow executives. Regardless of why an executive leaves the important thing is to leave professionally, quietly, and making sure the employer has a detailed report on all of your projects and work. And most certainly respect their intellectual property which in today's world virtually every company has been a victim of intellectual property theft. According to most recent surveys 33% of employees have stolen intellectual property and this is a major concern for every company and is the primary reason some employers require the departing executive to leave the day of their resignation.

Just a thought,
Gus Downing