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2012 Archives
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Prince George, MD police department 's special enforcement
division (ORC) says they started seeing the Tide "liquid
gold" organized schemes last fall and made significant
arrests and now are seeing evidence it's starting again and
"It's a national trend."
Lt. Brady Pyle attributes the cleanup of Tide theft suspects
to the department’s new Organized Retail Crime Unit, which
formed in 2011 to tackle Tide thefts and similar cases for
household items such as razors and baby formula. He said
they’re not going after isolated retail shoplifting
incidents, but rather looking at entire criminal operations
so suspects can be better prosecuted. Following the police
department’s initial investigation mainly conducted in
November, police arrested and charged 18 suspects, most from
Capitol Heights, for being involved in stealing large
quantities of Tide detergent and either selling them to
individuals or small, locally owned stores. He said there
are now roughly 12 more individuals police are targeting and
looking to indict to dampen signs of a potential new wave of
Tide thefts. Pyle said. “And we found they’re selling to mom
and pop stores — nail salons, barber shops — whoever thinks
they can turn a buck off of buying it.” Craig Muckle, a
spokesman for Safeway’s eastern division in Lanham, said
after noticing the trend he has been speaking with Safeway
representatives on the West Coast who say they are
experiencing widespread thefts as well.
(Source
gazette.net)
Alpha High Theft Solutions response- While
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theft, Alphas's is the only one with a solution! Check this
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Excerpts from
GAO-11-675: Efforts to Combat Organized Retail
Crime
The U.S. Government Accountability Office ORC report
June 2011
Law Enforcement
Agencies Collaborate with Retailers to Investigate
ORC, and Federal Agencies Are Taking Steps to
Improve ORC Case Tracking
Federal
Efforts: Although state
and local law enforcement are generally responsible
for investigating ORC crimes in conjunction with
retailers, federal agencies may become involved in
major ORC cases that involve a multistate or
transnational component. While ORC itself is not a
federal crime, it can be comprised of a variety of
underlying crimes that can fall under the
jurisdiction of multiple federal agencies. As noted
previously, the FBI and ICE are the principal
federal agencies addressing a range of ORC-related
crimes, including interstate transportation of
stolen property, money laundering, fraud activities,
and aiding and abetting of those crimes, but others
may also be involved depending on the case
specifics, including investigators with the USSS,
Postal Service, and the IRS, among others.
Consistent with previous testimony, officials from
the three federal agencies we spoke with stated that
existing federal authorities and criminal statutes
are generally sufficient to target ORC-related
activities and groups.
Federal entities typically become aware of ongoing
ORC investigations when retail or state and local
partners flag these cases for potential federal
involvement, or when participating in other
collaborative law enforcement efforts, such as task
forces. Although officials with FBI and ICE
routinely conduct outreach to ORC stakeholders and
participate in loss prevention conferences,
combating ORC is not an identified mission priority
for any of the federal agencies we interviewed, and
none has specific resources dedicated to conducting
these investigations. This is, in part, because
other types of cases are often larger or present a
more specific threat to homeland security, such as
in the case of terrorism or illegal immigration. In
addition, although ORC stakeholders have cited
potential links between ORC and terrorism, officials
from the federal agencies we interviewed were unable
to identify any ORC cases with any specific links to
terrorism-related activities or financing. Consequently, decisions to initiate federal ORC
investigations are largely conducted on a
case-by-case basis, weighing the potential scope and
financial impact of the case with other
investigative priorities. Retail and law enforcement
stakeholders we interviewed also cited factors
inherent to ORC investigations that they consider
when deciding whether an investigation merits the
involvement of federal agencies:
• Federal ORC cases are particularly time and cost
intensive, often taking several years and
potentially requiring $100,000 or more of retail
merchandise to use as evidence. An FBI official
responsible for coordinating ORC investigations and
a retail stakeholder similarly noted that major ORC
cases routinely require extensive undercover and
buyback operations to successfully build a case up
to the highest levels of an organization.
• Although no specific federal financial threshold
exists, stakeholders we interviewed collectively
estimated that the value of merchandise stolen
required for federal agencies to consider an ORC
case ranged from $100,000 to $1 million, depending
on the jurisdiction. Officials with FBI and ICE also
estimated $100,000 as a likely starting point to
pursue federal prosecution, but stated they may
review cases with a smaller dollar value of
merchandise stolen if it appears that the cases may
increase in size or can be connected to other
crimes. (Source
gao.gov)
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