In Hard Focus: Shoplifting on Steroids

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/business/articles/1202biz-ev-secruity1203.html

Shoplifting has always been bad news. It’s also BIG business. According to Jason Beckerman, a Target Investigator, if you added up burglaries, auto theft, and indeed every kind of theft outside of shoplifting, you’d still have a problem less than half as large as shoplifting itself. In the Arizona Republic he is quoted as saying, “The value of property lost in […] excluding shoplifting was $18 billion in 2006. Shoplifting losses totaled more than $40 billion that year.” Part of the problem more recently has been professionalization of retail theft. Shoplifting isn’t so much about teen-agers sneaking a pair of designer jeans past a checkout counter anymore. Instead, well organized gangs of criminals steal huge quantities of popular goods from stores and warehouses. Items targeted range from iPods, to Visine, to baby formula, with values per truckload often reaching into the millions.

And because the Internet offers so many ready-made outlets, like eBay, to quickly sell stolen merchandise, cashing in on stolen goods is easier than ever. It’s enough to make one long for the good old days when crooks could be found selling speakers out of the trunk of a car for 10 cents on the dollar.

Smarter and more organized criminals, along with this so-called “fast food fencing,” have lead retailers to adopt higher prices and new approaches to fighting crime. They’ve been forced to become smarter and more organized themselves, building in-house investigative teams armed with technology straight out of C.S.I. For example:

This fiscal year, Target has closed 30 investigations, made 60 arrests and is
working about 16 cases in Arizona and New Mexico. Target has three investigators
in Arizona to hunt down the biggest offenders here and in New Mexico. The chain
also operates two forensic labs in the United States, including one in Las
Vegas.

Facial recognition systems and other advanced surveillance technologies are also being deployed to investigate, and more importantly prevent, organized retail theft. Today, databases of known criminals and gang members can be shared across retail institutions and tied directly into participating stores’ camera networks. When a “bad guy” is spotted on camera, security personal are instantly alerted. And as importantly, the advanced search engines can be used instantly sift through company surveillance archives for any and all related evidence to a suspect.

Shoplifters may be getting smarter and more organized, but they aren’t the only ones. And in an arms race between the bad guys and the Targets, Walgreens, and Wal-marts of the world… I think the smart money is on Wal-mart.