Federal investigators have tracked major retail theft incidents back to criminal organizations in Europe and South America that send non-U.S. citizens into the United States with the sole objective of stealing.
These foreign crime rings are flying operatives into the country to do as much damage as possible at major stores, and the thefts contributed to the $112 billion total in retail losses in 2022, up from $94 billion in 2021, according to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials who briefed House lawmakers Tuesday.
Investigations launched by DHS’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations arm focus on the head honchos behind organized crime rings and have uncovered several such foreign-based groups that have targeted and continue to focus their efforts on hurting U.S. retailers.
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Krol pointed to another crime ring in which Romanian organized theft groups, or ROTG, based out of Eastern Europe recruit people to travel to the U.S. to commit various types of crimes, including retail theft.
“A recent HSI investigation in Missouri revealed an ROTG, comprised of previously deported individuals, that wired illicit proceeds to Romania and other international destinations,” Krol said.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director of the Criminal Investigative Division Jose A. Perez said the agency has launched an initiative targeting the South American theft groups and shared intelligence with law enforcement worldwide.
This specific ring consists of citizens from Chile and other South American countries who exploit tourist visas to travel to and from the U.S. to steal and then ship the goods internationally.
In the government’s fiscal 2023 year, which ended in September, HSI worked with the Secret Service, ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to prevent suspected members of the South American and Romanian crime rings from entering the U.S., as well as go after immigrants already in the U.S.
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“For several years we have had a group that travels from the West Coast to the East Coast for a 6–8-week period, stealing ink cartridges up and down the I-95 corridor. Investigations determined that this group operates an online ink cartridge store,” the NRF told the panel in a written statement. “They fly to Boston every year, renting a vehicle for the purpose of committing these thefts. They travel up and down the East Coast, stopping at several retail stores daily. The stolen product is shipped back to California.”
The three suspects have not yet been identified, but at least one of them may not be a U.S. citizen and resides outside the country after being recorded crossing into Mexico at the border.
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“One of the challenges with investigating Organized Retail Theft is that most of these crimes appear initially as state offenses, such as shoplifting, that are not ordinarily reported to the FBI and may not have clear connection to a transnational criminal organization,” Perez said. “To address this challenge, the FBI continually partners with state and local law enforcement to share intelligence on crime trends and patterns and create better networks to identify the criminal actors.”
* Original Article:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/organized-retail-crime-rings-testimony-congress