Hedgie's Dispatch from NRF PROTECT 2025 | Part 2

By Hedgie Bartol, Avid Industry Advocate

Morning: Risk’s Grand Ensemble

Day 2 began with leaders spotlighting the “team-sport” approach to threat: organized retail crime (ORC), workplace violence, cyberattacks, third-party vulnerabilities—all under one cross-functional umbrella. Tensions around silos? Gone. Today’s mantra: one mission, many defenders.

High-Fidelity Threat Talk

Sessions dove deep: from live case studies on ORC busts to interactive workshops on managing cyber-fraud overlap. Content was granular—think threat actor profiles, live breach tabletop simulations, supplier risk bundling—all with actionable frameworks.

Fusion Center Prime Time

The NRF Fusion Center was humming—real-time intel, simulated incident zones, and inter-agency dialogues kept attendees rooted in tradecraft. Law enforcement, cybersecurity vets, and LP leads dissected scenarios live—then queued for peer Q&A.

Expo Floor: Solution Sprint

Over 200 exhibitors brought their A-game. The expo had rapid-fire demos and strategic reboots:

• Tech showcase: Cross-channel fraud platforms, AI shrink monitors, K 9-backed security systems front and center.

• Vendor corner: Live ORC intel platforms—mapping hotspots and linking lost-case chains.

• Third-party risk booths: Supplier risk scorecards, audit-automation tools, and compliance radars.

Peer Power Breakouts

Table rounds were packed: ORC vs. cyber-fraud, mental-health-in-workplace vs. active-threat strategies. Attendees exchanged war stories—“here’s how we caught internal tech fraud,” “here’s how we de-escalated workplace violence.” It was peer-learning unleashed.

Midday: Awards & Accolades

Mid-evening ceremony spotlighted standout practitioners—leaders who took cross-disciplinary risks, advanced ORC response protocols, and boosted enterprise resilience. Recognition fueled momentum and validated the collective mission.

Day 2 Takeaways (Hedgie Tabulation)



Bottom line: Day 2 of NRF PROTECT 2025 erased silos and sharpened retail risk ops—through hands-on simulations, peer intelligence, and next-gen security tools. If you're not already integrating across cyber ORC violence LP domains, you're already behind.

Check out Hedgie Bartol's NRF PROTECT dispatch from yesterday's edition
 

United Front Against ORC Taking Shape
Trends and Threats in Today’s Domestic Retail Landscape

Retailers, law enforcement, and prosecutors form a united front against organized retail crime, signaling a national shift toward proactive enforcement.

• Organized retail crime (ORC) is escalating: Retail theft losses surged to $42.6 billion by 2023, with $101 billion lost to return fraud, while violence associated with shoplifting has sharply increased.

• Law enforcement and legal systems are evolving: States like Arizona and Kansas are leading the way with model legislation, inter-agency collaboration, and innovative prosecutorial strategies to treat ORC as an organized, multi-jurisdictional crime.

• National response is taking shape: The first-ever National ORC Blitz in May 2025 marks a turning point in collective efforts by over 30 states, signaling that retail theft is no longer being ignored and will be prosecuted aggressively.

During the Covid pandemic years of 2020 through 2023, retail losses from external theft leaped from $32.1 billion to $42.6 billion. Additionally, $101 billion in losses from fraudulent returns were incurred in 2023, and over 90% of retailers reported an increase in violence from shoplifters, as indicated by the 2024 report "The Impact of Retail Theft & Violence" from the National Retail Federation (NRF) and the Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC). If the statistics continue to follow these upward trends, retailers can expect grim years ahead.

However, there is good news on the horizon. An increased awareness of retail crime, combined with advancements in technology and increased collaboration, means that sellers have more tools at their disposal to combat crime than ever before. securityinfowatch.com

At Least 30 States Have Passed ORC Laws
Oklahoma joins a growing number of states cracking down on shoplifting rings at the urging of retailers

A new law will give the Oklahoma Attorney General powers to prosecute organized retail crime, but a provision that would have made it easier for shoplifters to pick up felony charges was removed from the legislation.

After a push from big retailers and law enforcement, a new Oklahoma law will give the state Attorney General the power to prosecute crime rings that steal retail goods to sell online for profit. But a provision to lower the dollar amount to charge shoplifters with a felony didn’t survive.

Under the new law, which takes effect in November, shoplifters can be prosecuted with organized retail crime if at least two aggravating circumstances are present.

Maximum penalties range from five to eight years in prison, depending on the value of the stolen merchandise. Anyone convicted of organized retail theft must pay restitution to the retailer where the merchandise was stolen.

The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office plans to spend about $1.1 million to hire six staffers to investigate and prosecute retail crime under the new law.

Retail industry groups have advocated for states to enact harsher penalties for organized retail crime in recent years. At least 30 states have passed laws targeting organized retail crime, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. readfrontier.org


Cracking Down on Retail Fraud:
How Ambient IoT Can Secure the Supply Chain

From consumer deception to organized theft, retail fraud is surging. A new generation of IoT sensing technology is stepping in to stop it.

Fraud now scales with modern commerce. Tampering, theft and shrinkage are increasingly prevalent across global retail and e-commerce supply chains, particularly in high-value product categories and in the last mile of delivery. Fraud often feels like the cost of convenience, which defines modern retail.

But today’s losses are staggering. In 2023 alone, global e-commerce fraud losses were projected to exceed $48 billion. Merchants now estimate that roughly 3 percent of their total e-commerce revenue is lost to fraud annually, with a similar share of total orders turning out to be fraudulent. These losses hit margins, damage trust, and slow operations.

Two Types of Fraud — and Why Both Are Hard to Detect

Retail fraud generally falls into two broad categories. Both take advantage of supply chain blind spots:

1. Opportunistic consumer fraud: Some consumers engage in deception — e.g., using products before returning them or falsely claiming an item never arrived. They justify it, seeing it as harmless to large retailers. But the costs add up. In 2024 alone, U.S. retailers lost $103 billion to fraudulent returns and claims, representing 15 percent of the projected $685 billion in total returns. “Wardrobing” — when shoppers buy, use and return items — was reported by 60 percent of retailers surveyed.

2. Organized theft from internal and external threats: At the other end of the spectrum is organized retail crime. Criminal groups target high-value goods in transit, marking boxes or working with insiders. A RILA survey found that two-thirds of retailers experienced increased cargo theft over the past two years, amounting to billions in losses. Insiders have also driven theft rates higher. In the U.K. alone, staff theft now accounts for £3.3 billion annually — 40 percent of all retail theft.

A Shared Challenge: Poor Product Traceability | Ambient IoT: Lighting Up the Dark Corners of the Supply Chain | Next-Gen Light Sensors for Tamper Detection | Rebuilding Trust Across the Retail Supply Chain: mytotalretail.com


Fake Crime Data in D.C.?
DC government is faking crime data, systematically under-reporting violence
Despite triumphant claims of “historic drops” in violent crime, D.C. residents find ourselves kicking off the summer with feelings of uncertainty. As I explore a possible run for local office, I have learned that systematic undercharging is fueling some portion of these so-called declines in violent crime. In short, a manipulation of the crime statistics is causing them not to align with reality, which helps explain why people in Washington don’t feel safe.

When a violent crime is reported as a “felony threat,” rather than “assault with a dangerous weapon,” it is not counted as a violent crime.

Our city leaders must act now to determine whether this is happening, to what extent, and how it impacts not only those within my own Ward 6, but also throughout the district.

On Feb. 20, to great fanfare, the Metropolitan Police Department Public Information Officer released the following statement: “Our initiatives and investments led to a historic 35 percent drop in violent crime in 2024, including a 32 percent drop in homicides and a 39 percent decrease in robberies. These decreases drove crime in Washington, D.C. down to its lowest levels in more than two decades.”

On paper, this seems like fantastic news. But day after day, we are bombarded with reports of shootings, carjackings and robberies. We witness teens running through crowded recreational areas with weapons, and we’re left wondering: Why isn’t the story we are told translating to our lived experiences? thehill.com


ORC Surging in Germany
German Retail Losses Hit New High as Criminal Gangs Target Shops
Germany’s retailers are seeing more stock vanish from shelves as in-store theft, driven in part by organized crime, reaches new heights.

Retail inventory losses in Germany rose to €4.95 billion ($5.7 billion) in 2024, a 3% increase from the previous year and the highest number ever recorded in industry surveys by the Cologne-based EHI Retail Institute. The increase was largely due to a nearly 5% rise in shoplifting, and a growing number of thefts associated with organized criminal groups, which typically steal at least €1,000 in goods per offense. bloomberg.com


ICYMI: How a Walmart Store Cut Shoplifting With One Major Change

Most nabbed in L.A. raids were men with no criminal conviction, picked up off the street