Posted on 09/02/2021 5:09:14 AM PDT by karpov
Ben Dugan sat in an unmarked sedan in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood one day last September waiting for the CVS to be robbed.
He tracked a man entering the store and watched as the thief stuffed more than $1,000 of allergy medicine into a trash bag, walked out and did the same at two other nearby stores, before loading them into a waiting van, Mr. Dugan recalled.
The target was no ordinary shoplifter. He was part of a network of organized professionals, known as boosters, whom CVS had been monitoring for weeks. The company believed the group responsible for stealing almost $50 million in products over five years from dozens of stores in Northern California. The job for Mr. Dugan, CVS Health Corp.’s top investigator, was to stop them.
Retailers are spending millions a year to battle organized crime rings that steal from their stores in bulk and then peddle the goods online, often on Amazon.com Inc.’s retail platform, according to retail investigators, law-enforcement officers and court documents. It is a menace that has been supercharged by the pandemic and the rapid growth of online commerce that has accompanied it.
“We’re trying to control it the best we can, but it’s growing every day,” said Mr. Dugan.
The Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, a trade association, which Mr. Dugan heads, estimates that organized retail theft accounts for around $45 billion in annual losses for retailers these days, up from $30 billion a decade ago. At CVS, reported thefts have ballooned 30% since the pandemic began.
Mr. Dugan’s team, working with law enforcement, expects to close 73 e-commerce cases this year involving $104 million of goods stolen from multiple retailers and sold on Amazon. That compares with 27 cases in 2020, involving half the total.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
P
Coming soon to San Francisco, only they will lose groceries AND pharmacies.
Reparations was always a skim operation for organized crime. They just figured out a new angle, but it’s still run by guys in business suits. Big difference: now they have the law on their side.
Havent noticed CVS supporting things like say, the recall of Newsom, or for that matter, any Republican candidates here in California. Certainly not in SF.
So maybe they just live with it.
And the cities where these stores are located do nothing. They should get out of these cities and cut their loses.
And the cities where these stores are located do nothing. They should get out of these cities and cut their loses.
“ . It is a menace that has been supercharged by the pandemic and the rapid growth of online commerce that has accompanied it.”
Total BS. It’s a menace that has been supercharged by idiotic liberal policies that refuse to prosecute criminals.
Maybe my next career if I get fired for not getting vaccinated.
We can live like The Warriors. Can you dig it?!?!
There’s lots of people stealing from retail to these days
For sure
Cyrus had a bad day......
sold on Amazon
because Amazon would never think that they might want to look at a member selling millions of dollars of allergy meds as opposed to say, floss picks.
Indeed.
Easy. Instead of waiting and watching what they do, wait, put a bullet in their head, stuff in dumpster. Repeat process.
Thank you
Why fight a losing battle when the cost can be passed on to the rest of us?
I didn’t see any mention that California has legalized shoplifting of $1000 multiple times a day.
Some foreigner owned business are doing something similar. Security busts them on the head and takes off. Everyone is wearing masks and the thieves don’t call the cops.
“There are no grocery stores in Camden, New Jersey. Too much theft, no profit in it. So eventually they all just shut down. People need to take buses to other nearby towns to buy them.”
Racist corporations!
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