You have seen videos like this here and other places. People just stealing stuff from stores and the owners and employees without a recourse because cops won’t even bother to arrest the culprit for crimes they know they won’t be prosecuted.
Well, you knew all those thousand of bottles of shampoo, razors and boxes of OTC medicines had to go somewhere, right? How about an organized ring of criminals that actually needs a 2 story high warehouse to process and secure the stolen merchandise as evidence?
Eight million dollars recovered from just this one gang. Forty million in loss revenue for the state and the average family pays an extra $500 on incr5ease pricing. And whatever cost the 8 month investigation and the work of a newly formed task force just to deal with this “harmless crime.”
“But they have insurance.” never rang so hollow and stupid.
Dallas TX DA made the level 750.00 way before all this rioting stuff happened.
Yes, insurance. Not designed for this sort of thing, on several levels. I’m a little surprised a small business in SF can still get insurance. Or perhaps they’ll just stop covering theft under $950.
The interesting question about that bust: will the charges be dismissed on the grounds that each individual theft contributing to that hoard was under $950?
Not sure what Cali will do, but RICO?
Gee, if you know who ripped you off, not going to the cops & taking care of things yourself seems a viable option.
I heard a talk from a major retailer’s “Organized Retail Crime” officer, and the scale of this is amazing. One of the rings he busted, the money was flowing back to Afghanistan, and not for humanitarian relief.
Organized shoplifting has been a thing for decades. Working for a grocery store in my youth, I remember a group of guys that would come in, snag a few cases of beer, and take off. They did it to several different stores every day. (The store I worked at stupidly put the beer right near the entry door.) Probably grabbed $50 to $70 worth of beer per heist. (Beer was running around $10 a case back then.)
Of course, if they got caught, charges could be pressed for any theft at all. So, different world.
Final note:
Crime will expand to the extent you tolerate it.
And in the end us law abiding folks still end up paying for it