Inside the organized crime rings plaguing retailers including Ulta, T.J. Maxx and Walgreens
Category: News & Politics
Via: krishna • 8 months ago • 4 commentsBy: Gabrielle Fonrouge, Scott Zamost, Courtney Reagan
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
- As companies continue to call retail crime an industrywide dilemma, CNBC has spent about eight months investigating organized retail crime rings, getting a rare glimpse into the complex layers of the organizations.
- In some cases, CNBC witnessed low-level shoplifting incidents involving people who appeared to be homeless, and in other cases saw takedowns of alleged organized theft groups that police said were reselling stolen merchandise at flea markets.
- One group, in operation for more than a decade, made millions reselling stolen cosmetics on Amazon, police said.
In a tony suburban enclave in the San Diego foothills, police say, an organized retail crime “queenpin” had built an empire.
Tucked behind the stone walls of her 4,500-square-foot Spanish-style mansion, Michelle Mack had stockpiled a small fortune in cosmetics that had been stolen from Ulta and Sephora stores across the country, authorities said.
Police don’t suspect that Mack, 53, took the items herself. Instead, they say, she pulled the strings from the shadows, employing a network of around a dozen women who stole the items for her so she could resell them on Amazon (cont'd in the article online)
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With their airfare, car rentals and other travel expenses paid by Mack, the suspects committed hundreds of thefts up and down the California coast and into Washington, Utah, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, Illinois, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio, investigators said.
Mack selected which stores to target and what merchandise to take and the women were sent to clear out entire shelves of merchandise before making off with the stolen goods stuffed into Louis Vuitton bags, investigators said.
Investigators began referring to the theft group as the “California Girls” and considered Mack the crew’s ringleader. She made millions reselling the stolen items on Amazon to unwitting customers at a fraction of their typical retail price, investigators said, before she was arrested in early December.
Law enforcement officials say Mack’s alleged theft ring is just one of the many that are plaguing U.S. retailers and costing them billions in losses annually. Their rise has led many companies to lock up merchandise , hire security guards and lobby lawmakers for stricter regulations .
These organized theft groups don’t typically carry out the splashy “smash and grab” robberies seen in viral videos. Instead, they pilfer goods quickly, quietly and efficiently. They often function within elaborate, organized structures that in some ways mimic the corporations they’re stealing from, police said.
These theft groups in their myriad forms have become a thorn in the side of retailers big and small, prompting retailers to cite crime as the reason for lower profits, the inability to hire and retain staff, and the degradation of the in-store experience. They have also united politically divided Americans in their disdain for seeing everyday products locked up behind glass cases and witnessing brazen theft gone unchecked in stores.
This is a much more serious issue than many people realize.