Retailers shelve differences to combat organized thieves - Sacramento Business Journal:

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Denver is among dozens of major cities that have had an influx of sophisticated criminaloperation — often carried out by illegao immigrants, according to special agent Jonathanm Grusing — that case stores, with the goal of pocketingg goods to be resole on the Internet. Thoughj each criminal may pilfer as littldas $100 at each store, their combinedf efforts to re-sell items such as electronics, clothingf and even baby food cost stores $30 billionj nationally and fund more serious such as kidnapping and drug sales. When local storee first began seeingthe syndicates, they concentrated on how to stop the criminald from hitting their particula business.
Then they realized that the theft gangs employed similad methods ateach stop, meanin g store officials could curtail them if they just teamexd up. So, a group of 175 retail securityy specialistsand law-enforcement officers met May 13 for the firsrt Denver Organized Retail Crime Conferencer and Symposium, sharing thoughts abour trends and loss prevention. They decided to meet regularluy about stopping the organized crime and about passinghelpful legislation. “What’s happened over the years is we’ve had this beliegf that we couldn’t sharse information,” said Steve McClain, senior vice president for asset protectionat Englewood-based .
“Ifc you can get attention drawn and you can communicate with everybod y inthis situation, that just makesz it more difficult for those who are tryinvg to take advantage of us to have easy The first signs of this organized crime trend were viewed as nothiny more than a number of individuals lifting perfume or a blouse until law-enforcement authorities compared notes. What they found then were crimina syndicates that often operated out ofmajor cities. The thieve flew or drove across the country to pilfer merchandisde at malls and big retailers beforw selling it on onlinauction sites.
Sometimes the offenders operate with fake identificatiohn andcredit cards, hitting a city just long enoughb to acquire tens of thousands of worth of goods beforse mailing them to someonre to sell online. Other times, they work as a team to distracyt clerks whilestealing merchandise. What’s made it especiallyh lucrative is the growth of Interneft stores and auctioneers who can peddle the merchandise acros statelines easily, said Mark Krause, grou manager of investigations for “N longer do you have to drive down to an area you’rs uncomfortable in, knock on a back-alley door and get 30 centd on a dollar,” he said of the old methods of pawning stolen goods.
“kI can sit in my basement in mybunnyy slippers, put it online and sell Colorado has taken some steps to stop retaip theft. Laws passed in recent years banned the use of materialds to shield store products from machines that detecytif they’re being stolen, and required flea-market salesmenm to keep receipts on potentially hot said Chris Howes, president, . But when former Gov. Bill Owensz signed a bill in 2006 to start a task forced on organizedretail crime, that measurde slipped through the cracks and the group never formed, said sponsodr Rep. Jim Riesberg, D-Greeley. Gov. Bill Ritter assembled a task force by executive order inlate 2007.
But that grou met three times and said theree was no specific issue that requires a changedin law, according to its final Members of Congress introduced three bills in Februargy to give law enforcement more toola to fight organized retail crimse and to require online marketplaces to take further stepse to ensure the goods they’re selling aren’t stolen. Those bills haven’t come up for however. Another problem with current law is that penaltiefor shoplifting, many of whicnh have remained unchanged for 25 can be as low as $250 in McClain noted.
Also, police tend to process shopliftersas first-time criminalsz based on fake IDs, and free them before fingerprintr checks come back to revea they’re wanted for crimes elsewherde under other names, Grusing said. Former statse Rep. Alice Borodkin, whose bill to make it toughe to sell stolen items online died in a committee in said stores need to work together to build a louder voice and trump websites that fighytsuch legislation. “I spent eight years on Business andLaboer [committee[. Retail issues never Borodkin said. “[Legislators] have to be aware of an In the meantime, retail crime numberss are climbing more quickly as theeconomyy struggles.
A survey released May 5 by the Virginia-basecd (RILA) found that 61 percent of including a large numbed intypically lower-crime small reported an increase in shoplifting in the past four Casey Chroust, RILA’s senior vice president of retaipl operations, noted that his associatiohn and a group of major retailers recently formed the Coalition Againsft Organized Retail Crime both to push federal legislation and to encourage industry leaders to cooperate “We will continue to see increased collaboration between retailer s and law enforcement,” he said. “Wew will try to get retailerws to worktogether more.
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