Thread: Intercity network helps retailers keep up with shoplifters,

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December 07, 2006

The really long arm of the law

Intercity network helps retailers keep up with shoplifters, fraud

By JIM BAINBRIDGE THE GAZETTE

Lee Lamer began to appreciate the full potential of Colorado Springs’ Retail Security Association a few years ago when he busted a gang of thieves at the Eighth Street Wal-Mart.

Lamer had gotten a tip from a Target store in Pueblo that had been hit earlier in the day for a cart full of electronic gear.

“They contacted the RSA to let us know the thieves were driving a Ryder rental truck and heading north on I-25,” said Lamer, now the asset protection coordinator for the Wal-Mart in Monument. “I went out to the lot, and the Ryder truck was parked right there.”

Armed with a description of the gang members, the way they operated and what they were targeting, it didn’t take Lamer and his security staff long to round up the crew as they were exiting the store with pilfered electronics worth thousands of dollars.

While the results seldom are that linear, the incident neatly sums up the purpose of the Retail Security Association — get local merchants to communicate and cooperate with each other to deter a daunting rise in retail theft.

Retail theft accounted for losses of $37 billion in 2005, up from $31 billion just two years earlier, according to a University of Florida study.

Started in 1999, the RSA has about 20 local members —mostly big box stores — who meet with the Colorado Springs Police Department on the last Tuesday of every month. Between meetings, members communicate by phone and e-mail.

“The monthly meetings,” said Dave Gilman, crime prevention officer at the Police Department’s Stetson Hills Division and the group’s liaison, “provide a forum to share information about trends and the kinds of crimes they are seeing. Sometimes they bring photos and video surveillance tapes to show to everybody.”

The group examines the gamut of retail criminal activity — sometimes attending classes offered by the CSPD — including shoplifting, return fraud, counterfeit checks, gift card fraud, fake IDs and the increasingly thorny problem of socalled booster gangs.

These are professional thieves who travel widely — and quickly — hitting several stores over a day or two before moving on to other cities. Like the retailers they rob, this is the gangs’ prime season, taking advantage of increased store traffic to obscure their purpose.

“The groups can range from just a couple to 8 to 10,” Gilman said, “depending on what they are targeting.”

Booster gangs often look for small items of value, but they also have eyes for products with high value on the black market in Mexico, such as baby formula, teeth whitening strips and electric razors.

“A lot of times, the shoplifting gangs start down around Texas and move north,” Gilman said. “The stores in Texas are good about notifying the stores here about what they are seeing and even sending along surveillance tapes.

“The gangs do tend to bounce around, not just stick to a Target or a Wal-Mart. They’ll go wherever they can find what they’re after.”

Phone calls, Web postings and e-mails have been used to notify merchants about what to look for here, and the RSA may soon have online access to a national network of similar organizations.

Started by a Tennessee sheriff’s department and sponsored by the Walgreens drug store chain, the network would give local merchants a look at trends and criminal innovations.

“The advantage we’ve seen in opening lines of communication between merchants has been phenomenal,” said Justin Lemon, loss prevention manager at Sportsman’s Warehouse at The Citadel mall and an RSA member. “The new system we are discussing will get information to us faster. Anything we can do to make that net tighter and deter crime in the community is a good thing.”

They sometimes have help by store employees as well. In some stores that is the only way they could pull it off due to their loss prevention systems. I know the one system that a Wal Mart store has and beleive you me it is very difficult to fool. They have cameras and unless you are an expert, you won't even find them. There are people in a room that constantly watch the TV screens and call the people who are working on the floor if they see something suspicious. This store catches a lot of shop lifters and many people have detered from trying.