More Oversight of the Security Industry?
Maryland legislators may consider increasing state oversight of security guards, which falls short of police standard, after recent deaths
"Private security guards, along with private police forces, should be held to the same level of scrutiny, accountability, and oversight that the Maryland General Assembly has put on public police agencies," state Sen. Jill P. Carter, a Baltimore Democrat, said in a statement. "When people assume power over others, they are responsible for upholding the highest moral, ethical, and judgmental clarity."

Despite having one of the highest concentrations of security guards in the country, Maryland is among the states that provide minimal oversight of the industry.

The state regulates only guards who work for private security companies. Guards hired directly by businesses that are not in the security sector are unregulated. That means guards hired directly by a hospital are not regulated, for example, while those from a private security company hired by a bank are.

Maryland has nearly 25,000 security guards, according to 2021 figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Maryland State Police, which issues licenses for guards employed by private security agencies, had active licenses for about half as many guards as of November.

There is no statewide training requirement for guards unless they apply to carry a handgun, which has a separate state police licensing process that requires specific training. Maryland falls into the approximately 20% of states that require no training for unarmed guards, according to a 2021 paper by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York.

Maryland law says only that those who apply for "guard cards" must be of "good moral character and reputation" and not have been convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors.

The state outlines no standards for guards' use of force against civilians. Though police may investigate a guard's use of force, neither the guards nor the companies that employ them are required to report on-duty shootings to the state. State police do not track uses of force by security guards. Nor are deaths involving security guards investigated by the attorney general's office, which examines deaths in police encounters in Maryland.

Carter told The Baltimore Sun. "Security guards often act as first responders and should be fully trained to handle emergent situations and threats in the same way any other professional would. Their education, training, character, and fitness should be top tier, as should all first responders." baltimoresun.com

Fears of SF Holiday Shopping Mayhem as Macy's Staff Threaten Strike
A potential labor strike at Macy's could seriously derail city plans to revitalize Union Square and cause holiday shopping mayhem in the process.

San Francisco has been battling to claw visitors back to Union Square this holiday season with a number of measures including beefing up security.

But after three years of failed negotiations, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 5 (UFCW5), a union representing retail workers, is holding a strike action vote. Should the vote pass, cashiers and customer-facing representatives at Macy's could stop working this holiday season.

The impasse reached boiling point last week when the union alleged that Macy's negotiating party abruptly left negotiations.

City Leaders To Lock Down Union Square Ahead of Holiday Shopping Season

In November, Mayor London Breed and a host of business leaders unveiled a new strategy to revamp Union Square, which had been experiencing a downturn in traffic after the pandemic and negative publicity stemming from a spate of viral burglaries. sfstandard.com

Are Jail Diversion Programs Actually Working? Auditors Can't Measure
WA., King County jail diversion programs not collecting enough data
King County's dozen separate adult diversion programs, intended to keep people out of jails and prisons, aren't adequately coordinating with each other and aren't collecting enough data to determine if they're meeting their goals, the King County Auditor found.

The county has 12 different programs, run by at least six county agencies, that provide adults alternatives to jails and prison, things like electronic monitoring, drug courts, mental health care, job training and community resources.

"It's difficult to tell if adult diversion and alternatives are working,"

The county budgeted about $26 million for the 12 programs, collectively, in its two-year budget, a small fraction of what it spends operating jails. Each program serves between 40 and 450 people, for anywhere from a month to several years.

Most intervene during or after a defendant's first court appearance, aiming to steer them away from jail. Some, like the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, intervene earlier, allowing police to send low-level offenders to case workers, drug treatment or community-based programs instead of the court system.

The county has broad goals with regards to the criminal legal system: Reducing jail populations, reducing racial disparities in the criminal legal system and reducing future involvement in the criminal legal system.

"Despite these, there is no coordination to track or measure progress toward county goals across programs," the report says. "Disconnected data systems make it difficult to measure progress on criminal legal outcomes that span various agencies."

The average population in the county's two jails fell from more than 2,100 in early 2020 to less than 1,500 a year later(28.5% decrease), as the onset of the COVID pandemic spurred efforts to thin head counts. It has since risen back above 1,530. seattletimes.com

Return Fraud: A Growing & Costly Form of ORC
Why returns fraud should be a top priority within loss prevention

Organized retail crime (ORC) is on the rise across all channels.

According to the 2022 National Retail Security Survey conducted by NRF and the Loss Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Appriss Retail, 68% of surveyed retail respondents experienced higher rates of in-store fraud in recent years, while 61% and 54% indicated a rise in e-commerce fraud and omnichannel fraud, respectively.

As a result, retailers are searching for the best ways to reduce their risk. The same report found that 45% of retailers are investing in new loss prevention tools but only 10.4% have changed return policies to address ORC.

This discrepancy between those investing in loss prevention and those adjusting returns policies highlights a lack of knowledge around the potential solutions to different kinds of fraud. After all, with fraud taking many different forms, retailers often struggle with knowing where to start their counterattack.

Defining returns fraud

Just like organized retail crime, returns fraud can take many forms. For example, some shoppers intending to commit fraud might shoplift and then return the item for a full refund or purchase an item, use it, and return it claiming it was new. Others may falsify a receipt or place a lower price tag on the more expensive item. Whatever the method, fraud at the point-of-sale and point-of-return can be costly, especially as return rates are growing faster than revenue rates for 91% of retailers.

Stopping returns fraud

With so much at stake in the battle against returns fraud, it might be tempting to implement strict return policies across the board. However, most returns are legitimate and come from loyal customers. As a result, retailers should rely on artificial intelligence (AI)-driven data to predict the risk of fraud and take action before the sale occurs or at the point-of-return.

During the return process, AI can also be used to make return approval, warning or denial recommendations based on historical transactions with that consumer. Overall, AI allows retailers to mitigate returns fraud without impacting the purchase or return experience for loyal shoppers. chainstoreage.com

George Floyd Protests: The Lasting Impact
LAPD to Retrain Thousands of Officers in Crowd Control Tactics
The Los Angeles Police Department says it'll begin retraining thousands of officers in crowd-control tactics and new rules for using less-lethal weapons adopted following protests in 2020 that saw the agency heavily scrutinized for its response.

Chief Michel Moore and other commanders who presented LAPD's tactics at the Los Angeles Police Academy on Thursday, Dec. 8, said around 8,000 officers, from the lowest levels to the chief himself, are still being retrained this year.

But starting in 2023, officers will get trained in those tactics all over again. The retraining and change in tactics are "a direct reflection of lessons learned in 2020," Moore said.

LAPD leaders have focused on training as one of their major failings during the 2020 uprisings following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man whose brutal death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer was captured on bystander video.  officer.com

More Retailers Cite Theft As Drag On Profits, Blame Organized Crime

Raleigh PD & businesses worry about organized retail theft during holidays

Modesto police crack down on retail theft during holiday shopping

Alameda police announce retail theft crackdown

NRF VP of AP Calls for Legislation to Fight ORC
NRF Crime Czar: 'People Believe it's OK to Steal'
David Johnston's tenure as the National Retail Federation's anti-theft czar, as it were, could not have begun at a much more challenging time.

With the wave of retail theft sweeping the nation, industry terms like "organized retail crime" and "smash and grab" are now part of the common parlance. And retailers scrambling for answers and support turn to NRF for both.

"The first month I walked in to a busy and difficult time in retail," said Johnston, a 30-year veteran in loss prevention and corporate security, who began the job of NRF's vice president of asset protection and retail operations on Nov. 1. "It's the holiday season, Covid is still impacting many businesses and there most certainly is an increase in violent theft."

Theories abound as to why shoplifting has gone from an annoyance retailers would calculate into their expense lines to an existential threat to brick and mortar business. To Johnston's mind, the cause of it all starts as a disease in the collective soul.

"I think there's been a change in morality where people believe it's OK to steal. More and more you're seeing in the media videos of individuals, or large groups stealing mass quantities and threaten or commit violence against retail employees and it's becoming more visible to the everyday person," Johnston said. "It's definitely a threat [to brick and mortar stores]. It's not every day you hear Walmart and Target and other major retailers in their earnings calls and in interviews with the press converse about their losses. And it's not just the major retailers; this is impacting small businesses as well. We're seeing businesses closing from Mainstreet USA to the malls."

While the fear and frustration have many calling for a rollback to the days of law enforcement and store security treating shoplifters more assertively, Johnston says the key to a long-term solution starts with Congress passing sound and actionable legislation.

The Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act, introduced in the House by two Democrats and two Republicans in mid-October, aims to get governmental leaders, law enforcement and retail owners working together on a "cohesive national strategy."

The act would also take aim at the root of the problem: the ease with which thieves liquidate their loot.

Today, the ease and anonymity of selling on the internet makes 'fencing' much easier, and, Johnston says, it's something addressed by the CORCA bill, as well as the INFORM (Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces) Act, which passed the House on Nov. 17. It appears to be on its way to passage in the Senate, as it is attached to military funding in the National Defense Authorization Act.

The CORCA bill, which Johnston doesn't expect to see a vote on until after the next Congress is sworn in, gives authorities more resources and greater opportunity to cooperate on tracking interstate, and increasingly, international crime.

Johnston reminds that the solution to the problem can't be government's alone to solve. Retailers need to realize they're all in this together.

"Retailers are doing a very good job with each other to tackle the issue. There is no competitive advantage here-we all want to make sure the industry is protected," Johnston said. "We need collaborations between retailers and law enforcement as their own individual entities, but also collaborations between the public and private sectors, in general." sourcingjournal.com

California New Criminal Justice ORC Laws Jan 1

Retail theft: AB 1700 sets up a section on the state Attorney General's office website to report stolen items.

AB 1700, Maienschein. Theft: online marketplaces: reporting.

Existing law, until January 1, 2026, makes a person guilty of organized retail theft if the person acted in concert with one or more persons to steal merchandise from one or more merchant's premises or online marketplaces with the intent to sell or return the merchandise for value, as specified. Existing law requires the Department of the California Highway Patrol to coordinate with the Department of Justice to convene a regional property crimes task force to identify geographic areas experiencing increased levels of property crimes and assist local law enforcement with resources, such as personnel and equipment.
This bill would require the Attorney General to establish a reporting location on its internet website for individuals to report items found on online marketplaces, as defined, that they suspect are stolen goods, and would require the Attorney General to provide that information to the applicable local law enforcement agency and regional property crimes task force. The bill would additionally require online marketplaces to display on their electronically based or accessed platform a link to the Attorney General's online marketplace suspected stolen goods reporting location.

AB 2294 gives law enforcement the ability to keep those in custody who are accused of organized retail theft.

AB 2294, Jones-Sawyer. Diversion for repeat retail theft crimes.

(1) Existing law requires a peace officer to release a person who has been arrested for a misdemeanor after securing that person's promise to appear, as specified, unless certain conditions are met for nonrelease, including, among others, there is reason to believe that the person would not appear as required or there was a reasonable likelihood that the offense or offenses for which the person was arrested would continue or resume.
This bill, until January 1, 2026, would include in the reasons for nonrelease that the person has been cited, arrested, or convicted for misdemeanor or felony theft from a store in the previous 6 months and that there is probable cause to believe that the person arrested is guilty of committing organized retail theft. By increasing the number of persons subject to detention in county jail, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.  leginfo.legislature.ca.gov

How to Stop Serial Returns From Damaging the Bottom Line
Retailers need to reimagine their return policies and create dynamic systems that identify and stop fraud while creating a flexible model to look after their best customers appropriately.

Some retailers have tried tightening return policies across the board by charging for returns or shortening return windows. This approach threatens the trust established with loyal customers and risks alienating high-value shoppers who deserve a flexible returns experience. The solution to this challenge is to provide a highly flexible return policy which tailors itself to offer an individualized experience to each customer. Not all consumers shop the same and therefore not all consumers should be constrained by a one-size-fits-all policy of when and how they can return goods.

Identify Fraudulent Transactions

According to the same NRF and Appriss Retail survey, 89 percent of returns were due to legitimate reasons while roughly 11 percent were fraudulent. The key to protecting profits is to identify fraudulent returns quickly and across any retail touchpoint and take action in real time, whether it's in-store or online.

The best way to combat fraud is to take an omnichannel, artificial intelligence-driven approach that identifies patterns in behavior and makes real-time recommendations for stopping fraudulent transactions in their tracks.

Modify Your Return Policy to Increase Loyalty

Machine-driven AI techniques can evaluate countless data points in immediate time frames, making nonbiased recommendations which would be impossible for humans to replicate. By implementing a dynamic solution, good customers benefit from relaxed return constraints and retailers benefit by avoiding the losses associated with fraudulent activity. The cost of implementing this technology is more than offset by the savings earned by stopping the losses associated with fraudulent and abusive activity.

A dynamic approach to return policies makes this ideal a reality and gives retailers the control they need to stop return fraud without risking valuable customer relationships.

Nathan Smith is the senior vice president of product at Appriss Retail, a fully integrated omnichannel retail return solutions, providing retailers with a holistic CX view.

Big Easy Bust: CBP's $29.5M Seizure Keeps LV, Gucci, Dior Fakes Off the Market
The New Orleans Field Office ports seized $29.53 million worth of counterfeit goods between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30.

The field office predominantly seizes counterfeits in the express consignment environment, with counterfeit luxury clothing and electronics making up the bulk of the seizures. While large express consignment operations can net large-valued seizures in single incidents, the majority of counterfeit seizures come in smaller, targeted operations, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). sourcingjournal.com

A Big Win for Labor Unions - Removing the Fear of Joining
NLRB increasing penalties for companies that fire workers over union activity
Companies that fire or demote workers as a result of union organizing activity may find themselves responsible for the financial consequences of their action on individuals who rack up late payment fees, healthcare costs and more. "Employees are not made whole until they are fully compensated for financial harms that they suffered as a result of unlawful conduct," said Lauren McFerran, NLRB chair.

"Fear of retaliation and dismissal is the primary obstacle stopping workers from getting involved in union organizing campaigns," said John Logan, a professor of labor studies at San Francisco State University. "Increasing the currently meaningless penalties for terminating workers is the most obvious thing to fix that."

The agency can also collect these penalty payments when employers illegally demote employees, cut their wages or otherwise retaliate.

This year has seen a surge of first-time union victories at companies, such as Amazon, Trader Joe's, Chipotle and Apple that have long evaded unionization, as well as a 53 percent uptick in filings for union elections nationwide. But union organizers say these efforts have been met with widespread retaliation from employers.

The ruling arrives under the recommendation of the labor board's top legal counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, appointed by President Biden, who has expanded the agency's tool kit in some unprecedented ways and could be the president's best shot at being the most pro-labor president in U.S. history. washingtonpost.com

Recession concerns lessen as prices decline and Americans spend
Concerns about a potential recession have begun to ebb as recent economic reports show inflation moderating and consumer purchasing remaining strong.

A number of signals this week are pointing to calmer waters ahead. The question is whether we've made it past the worst of things or if we're simply in the deceptively sunny eye of the storm.

Price increases in the United States cooled more than economists expected last month, recording the lowest level of growth since last December. Annual inflation in November was 7.1%, down from 7.7% in October

"There's growing evidence that the worst of the inflation scare may be in the rearview mirror," he wrote in a note on Tuesday.

Recession fears are also ebbing a bit. The economy is cooling in some sectors - housing has taken a hit, manufacturing is slowing and consumer and business confidence are lower. But Americans have proved resilient. They're still spending and the job market remains healthy. A soft-landing is not a given, but the runway appears wider than it did a few months ago. cnn.com

Macerich Mall Owner CFO: seeing signs of the "most normal holiday season" in three years
"In 2021, we saw things limping back to normal but people were still cautious," he said in an interview with CFO Dive. "There is a return of families back to centers, with lines for Santa photos. Parking lots are full, and there are a lot of people shopping."

The company announced on Nov. 3 a 95% increase in foot traffic year-to-date for the third quarter, with levels back to those of pre-pandemic times driving tenant sales 5% above the same period in the year-earlier and 13% higher than the same span of 2019. cfodive.com

Walmart Taking Robotics One Step Further Than Amazon
Walmart sees automation as the future

CEO predicts big decline in labor costs as warehouses adopt robotics, implement inventory optimization

Speaking at the 2022 Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Conference, McMillon said that robotic warehouses, in which goods are moved by unmanned wheeled carts, will not only reduce the need for workers in the warehouses themselves, but also in the stores where the goods are received.

In the future, he said, products will be delivered to stores on pallets that have been organized according to that store's particular layout, category by category, so that employees can stock shelves efficiently directly from a pallet, rather than carting boxes of individual products back and forth from a back room.

"It's a different process, eliminating a lot of hours that we invest in in the back rooms of our stores," McMillon said.

Over the coming years, combining those kinds of robotics with inventory optimization technologies and predictive sales analytics will drive costs out of the system, he said. supermarketnews.com

Talk About Brand Reputation & Ethics
Your merchandise was made in a sweatshop. Now what?

When it comes to supply chain ethics, retailers may no longer be able to cede responsibility to the brands they sell.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Labor, as it often does, issued a press release noting that officials had ordered a Los Angeles-based garment manufacturer to pay back wages after the factory illegally withheld pay and overtime pay from its workers. In it, the department mentioned three retailers connected to the incident: Evereve, Indigo and Stitch Fix.

The differing reactions from the retailers demonstrate that there's no clear protocol in the industry when brands they sell get caught up in labor and safety infractions at garment manufacturers. It's a stubborn problem usually seen overseas but also endemic in Los Angeles, now the country's textile center.

But it's naive for a retailer to think it can walk away from the conversation just because they don't run the factory or even the brand involved, according to Alison Taylor, executive director of the Ethical Systems program at New York University's Stern School of Business.

"If I'm a retailer, I'd want to have a conversation with the brand and feel comfortable they were tackling it," she said. "I'm not sure we need more people piling into this factory and investigating everything. But I would want to know they are dealing with it. I would want to hear them explain to me what they're going to do about it, and then I'm probably going to keep an eye on it." retaildive.com

NY Air National Guard member dies snowboarding at American Dream Mall indoor slopes

New York enacts workplace breastfeeding law for Ney York employers


Quarterly Results

Alimentation Couche-Tard (Circle K) Q2 U.S. merch. comp's up 5.6%, EU comp's up 2.9%, Canada comp's down 1.5%, total revenue up 2.3%

Joann Q3 comp's down 8%, omni-channel sales down 4.4%, net sales down 7.9%

Congress introduces bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok in U.S.

Governmental efforts to halt the use of TikTok in the U.S. are gaining serious momentum.

On Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022 Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced bipartisan legislation to ban TikTok from operating in the United States. The "Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act (ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act)" would block and prohibit all transactions from any social media company in, or under the influence of, China, Russia, and several other foreign countries of concern

However, the legislation's sponsors have publicly stated that its main target is TikTok, the hugely popular global short video platform owned by a China-based company, Byte Dance, whose critics accuse it of having ties to the Chinese Communist Party

TikTok is digital fentanyl that's addicting Americans, collecting troves of their data, and censoring their news. It's also an increasingly powerful media company that's owned by ByteDance, which ultimately reports to the Chinese Communist Party - America's foremost adversary. No country with even a passing interest in its own security would allow this to happen, which is why it's time to ban TikTok and any other CCP-controlled app before it's too late," said Rep. Gallagher.

U.S. retailers, consumers cozy up to TikTok

Security concerns have not so far stopped U.S. consumers or retailers from actively pursuing shopping-related activities on the platform, which focuses on user-generated short-form videos.

Retailers including Walmart, Saks and Instacart have partnered with TikTok, and Bazaarvoice data indicates TikTok shopping levels grew 567% in 2021. And earlier in December, Amazon added a Tik Tok-inspired feature called Inspire to its shopping app.

In addition, media reports have indicated TikTok is testing an e-commerce feature called TikTok Shop in the U.S. TikTok Shop currently operates in the U.K. and Southeast Asia. The pilot of TikTok Shop in the U.S. is said to be part of a larger effort by TikTok's parent company, China-based ByteDance, to establish a robust livestream shopping business in the U.S. which it internally refers to as "Project Aquaman."

Read more about the act here. chainstoreage.com

Beyond Point-to-Point Encryption: The Importance of Whole-Store Cybersecurity
It's no wonder that retailers are embracing Point-to-Point-Encryption (P2PE) to protect credit card transactions while reducing the complexity and scope of PCI compliance. But P2PE only protects credit card transactions.

Today's retail environment relies on digital solutions for everything from omnichannel customer experience to employee engagement and store operations - and demands a whole-store approach to cybersecurity in order to preserve business capabilities while engaging effectively and safely with customers.

P2PE provides effective protection for credit card transactions, encrypting payment card data at the card reader and reducing the exposure of the cardholder. It is not, however, failsafe protection against hacking and breaches into the rest of the store. If there are security weaknesses in the store network - for example, through IoT devices like security cameras, media players, temperature sensors, or Wi-Fi access points - retailers may still be vulnerable

Protecting a merchant's ability to run the business includes protecting everything on the store network, from customer loyalty data, back-office payroll, inventory management systems, media players, ATM machines, and lottery kiosks. As merchants take concrete steps to protect credit card data through P2PE, they also should take steps to strengthen their network security operations for end-to-end security to keep both the store and the business safe.

Just as retailers' businesses are evolving, so must their approach to cybersecurity. Amid a constantly changing threat landscape, rising IT costs and lack of available cybersecurity professionals, providing whole-store cybersecurity is no easy task for the average retailer. risnews.com

24% of technology applications contain high-risk security flaws
With, arguably, a higher proportion of applications to contend with than other industries, tech firms would benefit from implementing improved secure coding training and practices for their development teams. In fact, Veracode has revealed that 24 percent of applications in the technology sector contain security flaws that are considered high risk-meaning they would cause a critical issue for the application if exploited.

The technology industry was revealed to have the second-highest proportion of applications that contain security flaws, at 79 percent, making it marginally better than the public sector at 82 percent. The tech sector lands in the middle of the pack when it comes to the proportion of flaws that are fixed. helpnetsecurity.com

PCI DSS v4.0: Roles and Responsibilities for the Customized Approach
This blog is the third in a series of articles on the customized approach. The first article in this series provided a high-level overview of the customized approach and explored the difference between compensating controls and the customized approach. The second article focused on considerations for entities thinking about implementing a customized approach and provided details about the customized approach resources included in PCI DSS and the PCI DSS Report on Compliance Template. This article focuses on roles and responsibilities for the customized approach, both for the entity developing and implementing a customized approach and for the assessor when reviewing a customized approach as part of a PCI DSS assessment.  pcisecuritystandards.org

Europol: Global crackdown against DDoS services shuts down most popular platforms
Some fifty of the world's biggest booter services, designed to enable users to launch crippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) against critical online infrastructure, have been taken down as part of an international crackdown against DDoS service providers.

Known as Operation Power Off, this operation saw law enforcement in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany take action against these types of attacks which can paralyse the internet.

The services seized were by far the most popular DDoS booter services on the market, receiving top billing on search engines. One such service taken down had been used to carry out over 30 million attacks.

As part of this action, seven administrators have been arrested so far in the United States and the United Kingdom, with further actions planned against the users of these illegal services. europa.eu

Federal Prosecutors in Los Angeles and Alaska Charge 6 Defendants with Operating Websites that Offered Computer Attack Services
LOS ANGELES - The Justice Department today announced the court-authorized seizure of 48 internet domains associated with some of the world's leading DDoS-for-hire services, as well as criminal charges against six defendants who allegedly oversaw computer attack platforms commonly called "booter" services.

The FBI is now in the process of seizing the websites that allowed paying users to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks that flood targeted computers with information and prevent them from being able to access the internet. justice.gov

Nassau County, NY: Police Arrest Two Serial Shoplifters from Freeport
The Third Squad reports the details of an arrest of two Freeport men that occurred on Monday, December 12, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. in Carle Place. According to Third Squad Detectives, along with Freeport Detectives and Third Precinct Substation Officers, Oreall A. Thomas, 47, of 101 Liberty Park Drive, Freeport and Shaun Williams, 52, of 20 Hillside Avenue, Freeport were arrested for multiple incidents of shoplifting at commercial establishments throughout Nassau County. Officers were notified of a larceny in progress at the T.J. Maxx, 217 Glen Cove Road in Carle Place, but the defendants fled the scene prior to Police arrival. Officers canvassed the area and located a vehicle matching a description of the defendants in the vicinity of Glen Cove Road and Old Country Road. They performed a lawful Vehicle and Traffic Law car stop and arrested both defendants without further incident. Resulting from the arrests, Detectives were able to close out 14 cases of Burglary and Grand Larceny dating back to June, 21, 2022 with losses totaling $15,393.11 that occurred throughout Nassau County. The defendants walk into these establishments, fill up large bags with unpaid merchandise, then proceed to walk out of the stores passing all points of sale and without any regard for the law or repercussions from law enforcement.  longisland.com

Erie, PA: Illinois Man Sentenced for Conspiring to Transport Stolen Merchandise Across State Lines
A former resident of Maple Park, Illinois, has been sentenced in federal court to 37 months in jail and ordered to pay restitution in the amount of $5,787 on his conviction of conspiracy to transport stolen goods across state lines, United States Attorney Cindy K. Chung announced today. According to information presented to the court, from March 2018 to May 2018, Pena and a co-defendant conspired to steal merchandise from business and retail establishments in multiple states and transport the stolen items across state lines. As part of the scheme, Pena admitted that he and his co-defendant stole jewelry from the former K-Mart in Millcreek Township and transported the stolen merchandise to New York as they continued their multi-state theft spree. Prior to imposing sentence, Judge Baxter noted that Pena had nineteen prior convictions and had failed to give any indication that he was interested in working hard and avoiding future criminal activity. justice.gov

St. Helens, OR: Walmart thieves steal three carts full of merchandise, police seeking IDs
Police in St. Helens are currently asking for the public's assistance in identifying four suspects who stole a large quantity of merchandise from a Walmart on Monday. Officers responded to the St. Helens Walmart at around 10:55 p.m. on the report of a theft in progress. Two male and two female suspects left the store with three shopping carts filled with stolen merchandise. One of the male suspects was seen on security footage pushing an employee out of his way when the suspects were confronted by staff as they left the store. The suspects fled the scene prior to police arrival in a blue Chevy Suburban towing a trailer. An area check was conducted, but police were unable to locate the vehicle. katu.com

Columbus, OH: Concrete block used in smash-and-grab at wireless store
Police are looking for two people they said broke into a store by throwing a concrete block into its front door window. According to the Columbus Division of Police, an unknown male suspect tossed a concrete block into the front door window of the Hudson Beauty and Wireless store in North Linden on Nov. 29. As the male suspect stole merchandise from the store, police said a female suspect also entered the store. Security footage shows the female suspect grabbing "arm loads" of stolen goods and a large box of stolen merchandise. CPD has released two photos of the suspects captured from security footage. nbc4i.com

Albany, NY: Pair arrested following 20+ shoplifting incidents
State police arrested James Galarneau, 45 of Albany and Megan M. Laprade, 43 of Massena on December 12. The pair were allegedly involved in multiple shoplifting incidents. Police report the arrests followed investigations into separate shoplifting complaints from businesses throughout the Capital Region. Police report Galarneau and Laprade worked together to steal items from businesses over 20 times since June. According to police, both were arrested in Rotterdam, NY. They were issued appearance tickets returnable to the courts on a later date and released.  news10.com

Bend, OR: 3 shoplifters arrested, more than $2500 in merchandise recovered at Walmart

Portage County, WI: Crime Stoppers: Attempted theft of $1,000 worth of stuff at Walmart

Austin, TX: APD searching for 'regular shoplifter' in November Home Depot Armed Robbery

Roseburg, OR: Woman charged with 2nd Degree Theft at Big Lots