Everon Expands Regional Structure, Appoints Proven Leaders to Advance Customer-Centric Strategy

New four-region structure enhances operational agility, strengthens Everon’s ability to deliver exceptional customer service and growth.

Irving, TX. [November 18, 2025] – Everon (“Everon, LLC” or “The Company”), a leading security integrator and premier provider of commercial security, video, fire and life safety solutions ranked the third-largest security company in the U.S. by SDM Magazine, today announced a strategic expansion of its regional structure, adding a new region and appointing seasoned senior leaders to drive operational excellence and elevate the overall customer experience. The growth to four dedicated regions – Central / Gulf, East, North / West, and Pacific – will allow for more focused leadership and collaboration across teams, with the intention of enhancing service and installation delivery and strengthening the overall value of Everon’s partnership with customers as a provider and integrator.

“With this enhanced regional structure, we’re empowering our leaders and teams to be closer to our customers, make decisions faster, and deliver the high-quality service Everon is known for,” said Mike McWilliams, President and Chief Operating Officer for Everon. “We’re also proud to welcome proven leaders to advance our mission for service excellence at the highest level. Each of these leaders brings decades of experience and a track record of success that will help us to strengthen partnerships both in and outside of our organization, drive accountability across our entire customer base, and accelerate growth.”

The following industry veterans have been appointed as regional leaders to drive critical success nationwide:

• Kwame Williams, Sr. Vice President, Central / Gulf Region

• Tondria Lopeztello, Sr. Vice President, Pacific Region

• Jim Hampton, Sr. Vice President, East Region

• Brian Willis, Sr. Vice President, North / West Region

Read more here
 

ORC Insights from Auror Executive & Industry Leader
Fighting organized retail crime: Lessons for banks and investigators

Insights from Raul Aguilar, former deputy assistant director for the Countering Transnational Organized Crime, Financial and Fraud Division of DHS.

By Sepideh Rowland, CAFP, CCBCO

To better understand the evolving threat landscape of organized retail crime and how FIs can play a more proactive role in disrupting it, we turned to Raul Aguilar, one of the nation’s leading voices in transnational criminal investigations. Raul recently joined Auror, a retail crime intelligence platform, as senior director of law enforcement partnerships, after a distinguished career at Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), where he served as deputy assistant director for the Countering Transnational Organized Crime, Financial and Fraud Division. At HSI, Raul helped shape the federal response to investigate complex criminal networks, including those fueled by ORC-related activity.

In my conversation with Raul Aguilar, we discuss how organized retail crime networks operate, the red flags financial institutions should be watching for, and the critical role of public-private partnerships in turning intelligence into disruption.

Rowland: Just how widespread is organized retail crime today, and what should FIs understand about its scale?

It’s a massive and growing problem. Coming out of COVID, the explosion of e-commerce and the ease of creating anonymous seller accounts has made it even more lucrative. Organized retail crime isn’t a fringe issue — it’s a multibillion-dollar criminal enterprise.

According to recent reports from RILA and the National Retail Federation, nearly $70 billion in goods are stolen from retailers annually. Even if just a fraction of those items are resold online or through other channels, that still amounts to hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars in illicit proceeds. These funds often support broader transnational criminal networks involved in everything from drug trafficking to fraud. FIs need to be aware that they may be unknowingly facilitating these transactions.

Rowland: Let’s talk about what happens after the theft. Where does the merchandise go, and how has online selling — especially since the pandemic —changed that?

Once the items are stolen, usually by individuals we call “boosters,” they’re passed up the chain to middlemen known as fences. These fences are the key players who resell the goods through a variety of channels. Some run brick-and-mortar stores or pawn shops. Others operate out of warehouses or flea markets. In California, there are even pop-up houses where crews sell high-end goods and they know exactly what to target and how much they can profit.

Then, of course, there’s the digital side — e-commerce websites where the anonymity makes it easier to offload stolen merchandise. Some fencing operations work with organized groups that build full-scale online selling pipelines. In some cases, particularly with things like iPhones, the stolen goods are even exported overseas, fueling an international smuggling network.

Rowland: You and I have often discussed the power of public-private partnerships. When banks and law enforcement collaborate, they can turn intelligence into real disruption. What’s the value of those partnerships in tackling organized retail crime?

Consistent communication is critical, whether it’s through webinars, online forums, or in-person meetings. Back when we launched Operation Boiling Point at Homeland Security, we saw firsthand that real impact only happens when communities come together. We had retailers, law enforcement, and prosecutors involved, but what was missing early on was the financial sector. Once we brought banks into our quarterly threat briefings, we really started to see momentum.

Read the full Q&A here: bankingjournal.aba.com


ORC’s Quiet Evolution:
The Rise of Micro-Gangs

By the D&D Daily staff

Organized Retail Crime continues to be driven by large, structured criminal networks that move stolen goods through sophisticated regional and national pipelines. But alongside those established rings, retailers are increasingly confronting a second, rapidly emerging threat: small, fast-moving theft crews that operate with the coordination of ORC but the speed and size of local offenders.

These groups — often two to four individuals — aren’t new, but loss prevention teams report seeing them more frequently across day-to-day incident logs. They hit multiple stores in short time windows, move quickly between jurisdictions, and often stay just under escalation thresholds. While they don’t carry the volume of major ORC rings, their frequency and mobility compound into significant loss — and they often operate unnoticed longer because their activity looks, at first glance, like isolated shoplifting.

Industry data supports the challenge. Recent loss prevention surveys note an increase in group thefts involving two or more offenders, and retailers say many of these incidents show signs of planning, coordinated entry and exit tactics, and rapid resale behaviors. The rise of online resale platforms has also made it easier for smaller crews to convert stolen goods into cash without relying on established fencing networks, allowing them to operate independently and flexibly.

For LP teams, these micro-gangs create a different investigative burden. Instead of tracking a single high-volume ring, investigators may face recurring clusters of smaller incidents spread across stores, districts, and even regions. Without quick information sharing, these events remain siloed, making pattern recognition more difficult.

To counter this, retailers are strengthening real-time communication channels, expanding cross-retailer partnerships, and relying more heavily on tools that can correlate incidents — including shared intelligence platforms, LPR data, and video analytics that spot repeated offenders across different locations.

Large ORC rings still drive much of the industry’s shrink and safety concerns. But micro-gangs represent a parallel threat: smaller in size, harder to detect, and capable of producing meaningful, repeated loss. Retailers now find themselves fighting ORC on multiple fronts — from major organized networks to the small, agile crews slipping through the cracks.


Improving Retail Crime Investigations
New police retail crime reporting delivering better results

A new approach to retail crime reporting is delivering better results.

Devon and Cornwall Police have reported a 9.4 per cent higher criminal charge rate for retail crime cases reported through the Auror crime intelligence platform compared to traditional channels such as 101 or the force website.

The Auror platform enables direct reporting from retailers to police, allowing officers to quickly identify repeat offenders, target high-risk areas, and build stronger cases from the outset.

Chief Superintendent Antony Hart, the force’s business crime lead, said: "The Auror platform has improved the way we respond to, and investigate, retail crime."

The scheme, formally launched in October 2024, is part of the force’s wider mission to tackle retail crime more effectively. By streamlining the reporting process, Auror enables partnered retailers to submit high-quality, court-ready evidence at the first point of contact, improving investigative efficiency and outcomes for victims.

The platform has also led to higher victim engagement. Only 3.6 per cent of victims declined to support further action when using Auror, compared to 16.6 per cent through other reporting methods. Devon and Cornwall Police believe this is due to the improved quality and completeness of evidence submitted through the platform. sidmouthherald.co.uk


Crime Stoppers: Greece PD on Holiday shopping & retail theft

Civil liberties groups sue San Jose over warrantless access to license plate reader data
 

Which Cities Will Spend the Most This Holiday Season?
Holiday Budgets by City (2025)
The holidays bring plenty of joy, but they can also spark seasonal stress, much of it tied to overspending. Holiday sales are projected to rise 3.7% to 4.2% this year, reaching more than $1 trillion. At the same time, credit card debt remains a challenge. In Q3 2025, the average household carried $10,227 in credit card debt, up 2.3% from the year before, according to WalletHub’s data. Adding holiday shopping on top of that can quickly increase the financial strain, especially if balances roll into the new year.

To help people spend wisely, WalletHub analyzed more than 550 U.S. cities to determine a maximum holiday budget for each, factoring in income, age, and savings-to-expenses ratios. wallethub.com

Perfect Storm for Home Depot's Slowdown
Home Depot’s business is stuck. That’s a bad sign for the economy
The housing market is frozen, and consumers are nervous about the economy. That’s a bad recipe for Home Depot.

The bellwether for US consumers and the housing market said Tuesday that its sales at US stores open for at least one year rose only 0.2% last quarter. It also cut its profit forecast for the year.

Home Depot attributed the slowdown to consumers cutting back on remodeling projects and big home upgrades. Mortgage rates have been stuck between 6% and 7% in recent years, leading fewer people to buy and sell their homes.

“We believe that consumer uncertainty and continued pressure in housing are disproportionately impacting home improvement demand,” Home Depot CEO Ted Decker said in a statement.

The company also said that fewer major storms and extreme weather events last quarter led to weaker customer demand for roofing materials, backup power generators and plywood. cnn.com


Leadership Engagement is Key
The Challenge of Safety Metrics
Not sure if your safety metrics are hitting the mark? Well, a white paper, The Challenge of Safety Metrics: Leading indicators in real-world applications, from the National Safety Council, released on November 12, “explores the real-world conditions that influence whether leading indicator programs take root and deliver lasting value.”

Among the key findings: Leadership engagement is the No. 1 enabler. “When leaders model expectations and align on goals, metrics gain traction,” the resource states.

Other findings:

• Collaboration between organizational functions (safety and operations, for example) and giving more ownership of leading indicators to individual worksites “help ensure indicators are relevant, actionable and embedded in daily operations.”

• Data quality and usability matter more than quantity. Organizations should focus on “meaningful metrics.”

• Nonpunitive reporting, shared accountability and other reporting structures support sustained use of leading indicators. ehstoday.com