Retail Security Experts Struggle With Organized Crime

The senior management and experts in Loss Prevention and Asset Protection continue to fight the ever-growing problem of Organized Retail Crime (ORC). Organized retail crime has been known in the past a a “fencing operation” but cases like the one cited, are not rare to retailers. These “crews” make a living shoplifting every day from different retailers and move across the country.

Here’s how it works:

The crew shoplifts as much merchandise at one time as they feel is safe to do. We’re not talking about only high end merchandise but goods such as men’s and women’s razors, sudafed-based over the counter analgesics, powered baby formula, batteries and the list is virtually endless.

The crew may have a shopping list given to them by a top level warehouse operation. This is where the stolen merchandise is inspected, sorted, and prepared for shipment to the next higher level. US organized retail crime operations ship a great deal of their merchandise overseas. The bad guys may send the merchandise across the country via US Mail or Fedex and are then paid as little as 10 cents on the dollar.

There is another piece to this operation that may surprise many: dumpster diving. They’re not looking for merchandise, they are looking for clean and like-new shipping boxes. There is a premium for shipping a carton of baby formula in the exact same box it could have come from. On the buyer’s end, the product looks just like it came from the manufacturer.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are lost to organized retail crime annually.  The link below is a typical bust of an organized retail crime crew who had targeted Victoria’s Secret.

7 arrested in Polk Victoria’s Secret shoplifting ring bust.

We provide expert security witness and consulting services for legal cases dealing with organized retail crime and retail loss prevention. Call Pat today to discuss your retail security needs.