'It's just a free-for-all': Brazen thieves stroll out of Home Depot with packed carts as Ross Dress for Less manager says her store is being hit four times a DAY - experts warn shoplifting is costing retailers $100BILLION per year

Daily Mail UK ^ | June 1, 2023 | Joe Hutchison

[Morgana]

Shocking videos have laid bare America's $100billion-per-year shoplifting crisis, with brazen thieves strolling out of stores including Home Depot and Ross Dress for Less with their arms full of stolen goods.

Surveillance footage shows a gang of crooks wearing masks wheeling shopping carts loaded with valuable products out of a Home Depot store in New York.

Another clip showed shoplifters loading up duffel bags and backpacks with perfumes and colognes from a Ross store in Colorado.

The National Retail Federation said that the scourge - which grew worse during the pandemic - cost the industry almost $100billion in 2022.

One Ross Dress for Less manager has said that thieves are targeting her Colorado store up to four times a day.

Footage captured at the location shows a number of thieves storming through the store filling bags with items before casually leaving.

The store manager Ashley Finley, told CBS News: 'It happens a lot. I would say that kind of incident happens four times a day.

Finley continued: 'It's company policy; we're not allowed to touch them, follow them or we are putting our job in jeopardy.

'We don't even intimidate them at this point -- they just come in here, get what they want, then they leave.

'We can't touch them, can't grab anything from their hands, can't put ourselves in jeopardy.'

Chris Howes, president of the Colorado Retail Council, said that organized retail crime is happening more and more often and is now estimated to cost Colorado retailers $1 billion a year in losses.

[Morgana]

FReepers if you are ever in a store and see this going down? Get out your phones and start recording, most important follow them out and get their license plate on video and hand it over to the police AND post it online.

We are the ones who pay in higher prices so get these thugs!

[rbg81]

Exactly. The law abiding citizens pay for this all in the end.

Sadly, in places like CA and NY, they probably won’t get prosecuted even with video evidence.

[LeoTDB69]

“One Ross Dress for Less manager has said that thieves are targeting her Colorado store up to four times a day.”

I’d say they are taking the store literally...dressing for less...nothing

This crap will not stop either as long as certain states tolerate it.

[sjmjax]

Self-service reparations!
If you’re appropriately racially privileged, you’re entitled to $5,000,000 worth.