Some of the most heinous crimes, dubbed "flash mob" robberies, have occurred in recent weeks. Hundreds of people stole goods from three Best Buy stores in suburban Minneapolis over Thanksgiving weekend. According to the local police department, approximately 90 people stole goods from a Nordstrom near San Francisco the week before. From Chicago to Los Angeles, stores have been targeted.
According to some retail and security executives, the recent thefts have increased in intensity due to the size of the groups and the organized nature of the crimes. During the Nordstrom heist, dozens of people arrived in cars at the store at the same time, rushed inside to create chaos and steal items, and then drove away. A small number of arrests were made by the police.
"We do see flash mobs on a regular basis." "We had some issues in California last week," said Scott Glenn, vice president of asset protection for Home Depot Inc. Power tools, for example, are a frequent target of theft in several of the chain's product categories. "The last few weeks have not surprised us," he said.
Retail and security executives said the incidents are part of a sharp increase in organized retail theft since the Covid-19 pandemic began, owing in part to increased demand for low-priced goods online as e-commerce has grown.
According to the National Retail Federation, organized retail crime, which is distinct from shoplifting in general, costs retailers an average of $700,000 per $1 billion in sales. According to these executives, stolen goods such as power tools, medicine, and expensive handbags are frequently resold anonymously on Amazon.com, Facebook Marketplace, and other platforms.
According to a Meta Platforms Inc. spokeswoman, Facebook prohibits the sale of stolen items and encourages users and retailers to report criminal activity to local law enforcement. According to a spokeswoman for Amazon.com Inc., the company does not allow sellers to list stolen goods and works with law enforcement and brands to stop bad actors and hold them accountable.
A spokeswoman for Home Depot said that theft apprehensions, which occur when store personnel seize a suspect, are up about 10% year over year. To prevent theft, the home-improvement retailer is hiring more security and changing the physical layout of entrances, such as adding more gates that only allow traffic to flow into stores, not out, according to Mr. Glenn. According to him, the company recently began adding technology to some items that renders a product inoperable until it is checked out at a register. "We can't prevent everyone from coming in and taking product," he explained. "We can make it more difficult."
A group of district attorneys in Northern California recently announced that they would each send a prosecutor from their respective offices to work together to stop the thefts. "These are clearly carefully orchestrated crimes, with large groups of people working together to create a mob-like mentality," Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley said in a statement.
Following the targeting of two businesses in Alameda, Calif., in November, the police department advised local businesses to take extra precautions, such as installing a shatterproof film over store windows, installing motion sensor cameras, and removing high-value items from store floors.
The California Highway Patrol, which has had an organized crime retail theft task force since 2019, announced on November 23 that it would begin increasing patrols on freeway corridors near major shopping centers to combat the crimes. And, on Thursday, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced the formation of a task force to specifically target organized retail theft, as well as the creation of a database to track retail robberies across the state.
Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore announced the arrest of 14 people on Thursday in connection with recent retail thefts in the city. From November 18 to November 28, there were 11 organized group robberies of stores in Los Angeles, according to Chief Moore.
On Friday, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul announced that the state's Organized Retail Crime Task Force had recovered thousands of stolen items valued in the millions of dollars at several Chicago storage facilities. According to Mr. Raoul's office, the units contained four semitrailers of merchandise, including clothes, beauty products, furniture, food, and electronics.
For years, organized group store theft has existed.
In the summer of 2011, around 40 people swarmed a suburban Sears near Philadelphia and stole thousands of dollars in goods, according to a Wall Street Journal article at the time. Earlier that year, in Chicago, several chains, including North Face and Armani Exchange, were involved in similar incidents. The National Retail Federation reported that year that 10% of the 106 retailers surveyed had experienced a flash mob attack. According to a 41-response NRF survey this year, approximately 69 percent of retailers expect an increase in organized retail crime in 2020. A similar number of retailers said organized retail crime groups “exhibit greater levels of violence and aggression than they have before.”
Retailers are increasing security presence as a short-term response to the type of theft seen in recent weeks, according to Ben Dugan, CVS Health Corp.'s director of organized retail crime and president of the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, a group that facilitates planning between retailers and law enforcement.
CVS has doubled the size of its corporate staff working on organized retail crime this year compared with last, he said. Longer term, the drugstore chain is working with local law-enforcement officials in several states to coordinate theft response, as well as supporting federal legislation that retailers hope will make reselling of stolen goods online more difficult, said Mr. Dugan.
Retail theft, particularly by organized groups, is rising at Best Buy Co. and is eating into the company’s profits, said Chief Executive Corie Barry on a call to discuss earnings last month.
The electronics chain is finding new ways to lock up products with less inconvenience to customers, she said, such as allowing people to pay by scanning a QR code before leaving with a product from locked cases. Locking up goods on shelves, as many drugstores do, can hamper sales since it can deter some shoppers who need to find a staffer to access an item. Best Buy is also hiring security and changing store layouts, she said.
“You can see that pressure in our financials,” said Ms. Barry. “And more importantly, frankly, you can see that pressure with our associates. This is traumatizing.”