Warning about surge in ‘organized retail crime’ l GMA

back now with a new warning about a surgeon organized retail crime stores are losing big money raising prices to cover it and the greatest cost could be to the safety of workers you know Russia up here with the details good morning Ariel good morning to you George retailers we talked to are losing billions of dollars to organized retail crime and authorities are warning that this has become an absolute threat to Public Safety with violent gangs dangerous International crime rings and even groups with suspected ties to terrorism increasingly getting involved you've seen the videos of brazen Smash and grabs at many different retailers across the country and federal authorities are now sounding the alarm about coordinated robberies like these it's an absolute threat it's called organized retail crime where groups of criminals steal high-value items to then sell online or elsewhere they know exactly what stores to hit when and where obviously the profitability is the key here retailers say this type of crime is reaching unprecedented levels forcing the average family to pay an estimated 500 more each year on goods are you seeing a dramatic rise in this type of crime absolutely it's growing double-digit year over year and Homeland Security officials tell ABC news they now see Violent gangs and dangerous International groups getting involved organizations suspected of ties to drug trafficking or even terrorism financing these criminal networks they may be full-time drug traffickers that see an opportunity to work with a crew that's already stealing big box retailers like the Home Depot have been hit especially hard investigating hundreds of cases and losing billions of dollars this past year alone this is what we refer to our billion dollar aisles billions and billions of dollars worth of sales in this product and then about a third of our losses from a theft and Fraud's perspective come from you know power tools particularly why do you believe that you've seen such an uptick pandemic aside which kind of embolden some people wearing masks there's the online proliferation about 90 percent of our organized retail crime cases involves some type of online selling platform opioids and Fentanyl continuing to drive the need for fast cash but worrying these stores even more they say thieves are growing more and more violent threatening employees with guns knives even a hammer Home Depot says it's taking steps to protect its workers and fight growing organized retail crime showing us new measures they're testing in this store outside Atlanta alarmed Gates increase surveillance up merchandise how much is a school like that worth Jimmy where's from a thousand dollars to Upward of about thirty five hundred dollars how much do you think one of these spools weighs probably close to 500 800 pounds they're rolling it out throw it in the back of a pickup truck or the trunk of a car and speeding away you can see that we've had to put a barrier in between the the Bad actors and the product but is it working it's definitely working and Home Depot acknowledges that these measures can create a barrier between the products and customers and a temporary inconvenience but ultimately they say they've helped save more than a million dollars at just that Georgia store in one year we'll have much more on our in-depth look at organized retail crime coming up tonight on Nightline guys wow A Whole New World we'll be watching aerial Russia thanks so much hi everyone George stephanopolis here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you'd like to get more videos show highlights and watch live event coverage click on the right over here to subscribe to our Channel and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts thanks for watching

Channel: ABC News

Views: 489,072

Keywords: abc, coordinated, crime, depot, gma, home, news, nordstrom, organized, p_cmsid=2494279, p_vid=news-99752111, retail, theft, walmart

Id: LkHsdmWW8kk

Length: 3min 40sec (220 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2023