Retail Leaders Urge Passage of ORC Bill at Congressional Hearing
The subcommittee chairman blamed soft-on-crime policies for the problem

‘Not a Victimless Crime’: Retail-Industry Leaders Testify on Rising Organized Retail Theft and Fraud
Select leaders from the retail industry testified before the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence on rising organized retail crime across the U.S., with one witness declaring that the coordinated theft and fraud of retail items is “not a victimless crime.”

The congressional testimony on Tuesday comes amid the Christmas shopping season as large organizations of professional shoplifters take advantage of soft-on-crime policies to steal store goods and, in many cases, resell them on the black market to make a profit. Organized retail crime is defined as two or more individuals, as part of a criminal enterprise, illegally obtaining retail merchandise through theft or fraud.

“Retail theft is not a victimless crime. It impacts jobs, consumers, and communities in several ways,” said David Johnston, vice president of asset protection and retail operations at the National Retail Federation, according to the hearing’s publicly available written testimony. “Increased violence involving theft has caused injury to employees and consumers, the unfortunate death of some retail associates, and a fear of working or shopping in high-crime locations. This makes it difficult for retailers to retain or find labor to support consumers.”

In his opening statement, subcommittee chairman August Pfluger (R., Texas) said organized retail crime is different from shoplifting or petty theft, and that even transnational criminal organizations crossing the southern border into the U.S. are contributing to increasing retail theft in both urban and rural areas. Lenient crime legislation, including high felony-theft thresholds and weak bail-reform laws, are failing to deter criminals from engaging in such illegal activity after they are released, added Pfluger.

A combination of these open-border and soft-on-crime policies is causing big-box retailers to shut down business in certain locations. In addition to monetary loss, organized retail crime comes with heightened levels of violence.

The other witnesses, apart from Johnston, who testified in the retail-designated panel included Scott Glenn, vice president of asset protection at Home Depot; Abby Jagoda, vice president of public policy at the International Council of Shopping Centers; and Summer Stephan, district attorney of San Diego County, Calif., who testified on behalf of the National District Attorneys Association.

All four witnesses urged Congress to seriously consider passing the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act to further crack down on organized retail crime.  nationalreview.com  c-span.org

Click here to watch yesterday's hearing

RELATED: Home Depot exec calls on Congress to pass bipartisan ORC bill


Home Depot VP of AP Says ORC 'Continues to Grow'
'We wouldn't invest to prevent that problem if we didn't see it affecting us'

Congress weighs in on retail theft, organized crime
Home Depot VP of Asset Protection (HD) Scott Glenn, who testified before Congress yesterday, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the issue and what the hearing addressed.

JARED BLIKRE: Talk to me about the data point that you're bringing to Congress today because going back to that NRF change in statistics saying that nearly half of the industry's missing merchandise in 2021 was the result of organized theft, but that number is looking like it was more likely closer to 5%. That's obviously a huge change. So what data point are you citing to support the idea that organized retail crime is leading to a necessary increase in retail theft?

SCOTT GLENN: Yeah. So NRF and our third-party partners are helpful, but they're not-- they're not what we rely on. We rely on our own internal data, and our own trajectory, and what we're seeing in our stores every day. And so you know, what we are seeing is that the problem continues to grow. It's putting pressure on us year over year. And we are investing to prevent a problem, and we wouldn't invest to prevent that problem if we didn't see it affecting us day in and day out. So I appreciate the retraction, but that's not really what we rely on to make our business decisions.

JARED BLIKRE: Do you think this legislation is really what's needed to enable the federal authorities to crack down on this? Does it enable you, guys? I guess bottom line what I'm asking is what's different about this particular act?

SCOTT GLENN: What I would tell you is there's a patchwork of local, state laws out there and they vary by jurisdiction. We've been working very closely with many attorneys general who have established task forces to address this. Some of them use RICO laws to address this type of problem within their particular states. Ultimately, what we're looking for is that federal level when an attorney general is kind of barred from going outside of their state and aggregating upwards where complexity and the breadth and scale of some of these crimes warrant some type of federal action. finance.yahoo.com


Foreign Criminal Organizations Fueling U.S. Theft Surge?
Foreign-run organized theft rings ravaging US retail stores with immigrant shoplifters: FBI
Federal investigators have tracked major retail theft incidents back to criminal organizations in Europe and South America that send non-U.S. citizens into the United States with the sole objective of stealing.

These foreign crime rings are flying operatives into the country to do as much damage as possible at major stores, and the thefts contributed to the $112 billion total in retail losses in 2022, up from $94 billion in 2021, according to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials who briefed House lawmakers Tuesday.

Investigations launched by DHS's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations arm focus on the head honchos behind organized crime rings and have uncovered several such foreign-based groups that have targeted and continue to focus their efforts on hurting U.S. retailers.

"One such example is the South American Theft Groups (SATGs), which include organizations based in Colombia, Chile, and other countries," said Michael J. Krol, special agent in charge for HSI, in written testimony. "These groups recruit members and facilitate travel into the United States for individuals who then commit strategic thefts of high-value electronic devices. Items are stolen, consolidated, shipped to another location in the United States, and ultimately illicitly exported to foreign countries."

Krol pointed to another crime ring in which Romanian organized theft groups, or ROTG, based out of Eastern Europe recruit people to travel to the U.S. to commit various types of crimes, including retail theft.

FBI Deputy Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division Jose A. Perez said the agency has launched an initiative targeting the South American theft groups and shared intelligence with law enforcement worldwide.

This specific ring consists of citizens from Chile and other South American countries who exploit tourist visas to travel to and from the U.S. to steal and then ship the goods internationally. washingtonexaminer.com


Can California Become the 'Model for America' in Fighting Theft?
Key to combatting retail theft is cracking down on online sales of stolen goods

By Cristine DeBerry is the Founder & Executive Director of the Prosecutors Alliance of California

The ease and speed of this digital convenience comes at a cost, as an alarming number of online retailers are peddling stolen goods taken directly from brick-and-mortar stores.

It’s fair to assume that online retailers are vetted and trustworthy, given the fact that we willingly store our personal and financial information on these platforms. Yet, the reality is unsettling – a substantial portion of these seemingly legitimate online marketplaces harbor sellers dealing in stolen merchandise. Just last year, 41 people were arrested in New York after a three-year investigation uncovered $3.8 million of stolen goods from Bloomingdales and Duane Reade were being sold on eBay. In 2021, an Atlanta based father and daughter duo were sentenced to federal prison for selling more than $6 million of stolen goods on Amazon, Walmart & Sears. And in California, a man was arrested in the biggest organized retail crime bust in California history for selling $8 million in stolen goods in 2020.

The anonymity of the online marketplace makes it nearly impossible to distinguish between reputable sellers and those engaged in organized crime trafficking in stolen goods.  While retailer complaints about the explosion of thefts are overblown, we can reduce organized retail theft by cutting off the avenue for resale via online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay.

Many online platforms already utilize verification systems to highlight reputable storefronts. It begs the question – why not extend this practice to identify and promote verified, legitimate sellers? In 2022, the Prosecutors Alliance of California sponsored SB 301 that echoed the INFORM Act, passed by Congress, which took effect in June 2023 and requires online retailers to identify high-volume third-party sellers in an effort to prevent online sales of stolen goods and deter organized retail theft.

As a trailblazer of legislative initiatives, California has an opportunity to lead the charge in combating retail theft. By implementing a verification system for online sellers we can establish an extensive process to verify online sellers. Requiring online platforms to implement compulsory training for all online retailers, enables them to qualify for a verification checkmark. An extensive verification process would allow consumers to make informed decisions about who they’re purchasing from, allowing them confidence that they are supporting legitimate businesses rather than fueling the retail theft epidemic.

By pursuing smart strategies to combat retail theft, California can become a model for the rest of the country and the world to follow – so you can buy your shampoo, and legally use it too. ocregister.com

 
Examining the Authority of Retail Security Guards
Security guards vs. shoplifters: What can guards do?
Security guards are often seen standing at store entrances and patrolling establishments’ property, especially more during the holidays when store thefts tend to increase. But in Washington state, security guards don’t have the same authority as commissioned police officers when it comes to stopping a shoplifter.

Except for helping in medical emergencies and breaches of the peace, security guards essentially have the same rights to act on crime as a citizen, according to SQ Attorneys, a team of Seattle criminal defense attorneys.

A breach of peace generally equates to an action that causes alarm or threatens a disturbance to the community. So a security guard could conduct a citizen’s arrest and wait for a law enforcement officer to take the suspect into custody if a suspect crossed that threshold.

At a store, a guard can detain a shoplifting suspect if he or she has “reasonable grounds” to believe the suspect stole or was trying to steal from the store, according to state law. Those reasonable grounds includes knowledge the suspect has concealed possession of unpurchased merchandise from the store.

Under such circumstances, guards can ask a suspect to wait for an officer to arrive, but they cannot hold them against their will or use force, SQ Attorneys says.

A store’s own policies on theft prevention and enforcement, in accordance with state law, often determine the actions of the guard, owner or employee.

Security guards have become more commonplace at Washington businesses, according to Mark Johnson, senior vice president of policy and government affairs at the Washington Retail Association. Johnson said increased thefts have caused more retailers to hire security personnel.

He said retailers with extreme theft issues have hired armed and unarmed guards as a “last resort” to keep their business open and provide a safe working and shopping environment. spokesman.com


Thefts Surge 30% in Pennsylvania
Retail theft rises in Pennsylvania after years of decline: report
After several years of declining retail theft, Pennsylvania has recently seen a jump in its number of retail theft offenses. According to data released by the Unified Judicial System of Pennsylvania, the state had a 30% increase in retail theft offenses from 2021 to 2022. The total number of retail offenses in 2021 it was 24,786 and in 2022 that number grew to 32,256.

This increase came after several years of declining retail theft numbers from 2018 to 2021. Despite the large increase in 2022, however, total offenses still have not reached pre-pandemic levels. In 2018 the total number of retail thefts offenses was 39,612 and in 2019 the total was 38,880.

The courts also released statistics on retail theft demographics as well as the months and counties with the most retail theft. According to this data, 50% of retail theft defendants between 2018 and 2022 were male, while 48% were female. The gender of the remaining 2% was unknown.

More, out of a total 84,887 defendants, 30% were between the ages of 26 and 35. The second highest age group was 36 to 45 at 20%, followed by 46 to 65 at 19%, and then 19 to 25 at 18%. December was the month with the highest percentage (10%) retail thefts between 2018 and 2022. It was followed by January, February, and October which each accounted for 9%. abc27.com


Crime Pushing Residents Out of Portland
Majority of Portland voters say they’d consider leaving if they could as crime, homeless concerns persist, new poll finds
About two-thirds of Portland voters say the city is on “the wrong track” and more than half would think about leaving if they could afford to, according to a new poll commissioned by the Portland police union. Sixty-eight percent of people surveyed said the city is “losing what made it special,” with only about one in five voters saying the city’s best days lie ahead. oregonlive.com


Oakland neighborhood uniting to help deter crime in their streets

1,000+ potential N.Y. State Police recruits attend processing weekend, most in decade