Authors: Hitha Prabhakar
As I was getting ready to pay for my shoes, I asked the manager if this type of situation happened a lot. He looked at me with an exhausted expression and said, “This is nothing. The other day someone came in here with a stolen credit card number on a real credit card and charged $10,000 worth of merchandise. I didn’t press charges, though.” Perplexed, I asked why not. “She was only 20 years old, and $10,000 is grand larceny. I would have ruined her life, and I didn’t want that on my conscience.”
And just like that, the cycle of retail crime repeats itself.
Glossary
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade
A coalition of Palestinian nationalist militias in the West Bank. The group’s name refers to the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The organization has been designated as a terrorist group by the governments of Israel, the U.S., Canada, Japan, and the European Union. Many Palestinian people believe that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is a group that defends Palestinian rights by lawful resistance.
Al Farooq Mosque
A mosque in Brooklyn that came under scrutiny when it was discovered that several Brooklyn businessmen and a cleric from Yemen had funneled more than $20 million to al Qaeda, according to prosecutors.
al Khifa
A Muslim organization that had numerous branch offices, the largest of which was in the Al Farooq mosque in Brooklyn. In the mid-1980s, it was set up as one of the first outposts of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam and Osama bin Laden’s Maktab al-Khidamat. (This organization was known to have raised money to recruit foreign mujahideen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Then it became the main fund-raising organization for al Qaeda.) Other cities with branches of al Khifa include Chicago, Pittsburgh, Tucson, Atlanta, and Boston. Al Khifa recruited American Muslims to fight in Afghanistan. Some of them participated in terrorist actions in the U.S. in the early 1990s and in al Qaeda operations elsewhere, including the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Alpha Trading
A shell warehouse in Illinois where many Level 2 fences sold their merchandise.
al Qaeda
From the Arabic
al-qa`ida
, meaning “the base.” A loosely knit militant Islamic organization led and funded by the late Osama bin Laden. It was established in the late 1980s and was made up of Arab volunteers who had fought the Soviet troops previously based in Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is known or believed to be behind a number of operations against Western (especially American) interests, including bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
al Shabaab
Arabic for “the youth” or “the lads.” Al Shabaab is an Islamist insurgent group fighting to overthrow the government of Somalia. The group is an offshoot of the Islamic Courts Union, which splintered into several smaller groups after its removal from power by Ethiopian forces in 2006. The group describes itself as waging jihad against “enemies of Islam.” It is engaged in combat against the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). It has reportedly declared war on the UN and on Western nongovernmental organizations that distribute food aid in Somalia, killing 42 relief workers in 2008 and 2009 and is currently blocking Somalians’ access to Western aid groups while it controls areas that have been declared famine zones since 2011. Several Western governments and security services have designated al Shabaab as a terrorist organization. It has been described as having ties to al Qaeda, which its leaders denied as of early 2010.
ARAPA
Albuquerque Retail Assets Protection Association. Karen Fischer is the brains behind ARAPA, the partnership which builds “local trust”
for law enforcement and Albuquerque police to feel comfortable in exchanging information on incidents. Trust building on a local level allows personnel from both sides to feel comfortable in opening the door to proactive, public-private collaboration. It is also what LAAORCA is based on.
aspirational shopper
Someone who occasionally splurges on a purchase of an expensive handbag, a pair of shoes, or a piece of clothing to feel and seem the same as those who can regularly buy such goods.
BAD-CATS (Burglary Auto Detail, Commercial Auto Thefts)
The Los Angeles police department cargo theft squad.
Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) of 1970
Also known as the Currency and Foreign Transactions Reporting Act. Requires U.S. financial institutions to assist U.S. government agencies to detect and prevent money laundering. Specifically, the act requires financial institutions to keep records of cash purchases of negotiable instruments, to file reports of cash transactions exceeding $10,000 (daily aggregate amount), and to report suspicious activity that might indicate money laundering, tax evasion, or other criminal activities. It was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1970. The BSA is sometimes called an anti-money laundering (AML) law.
BAORCA (Bay Area Organized Retail Crime Association)
San Francisco’s organized retail crime database system, modeled after Los Angeles’ LAAORCA.
Bertelsmann Transformation Index (BTI)
An international ranking of 125 developing and transition countries. It considers the political and economic status of each country and the political management performance by the relevant actors by publishing two rankings, the Status Index and the Management Index.
Bloods
A street gang founded in Los Angeles, California, widely known for its rivalry with the Crips.
booster
Someone who steals merchandise from stores. Also known as a
runner
.
A Level 1 booster fits the image of a typical shoplifter—an emotionally needy starlet, the little old lady across the hall, the neighborhood heroin addict. The person usually has a drug, gambling, or alcohol addiction and steals to fund fixes. The Level 1 booster may steal on her own or in a group.
A Level 2 booster is more organized, tends to travel to different states, and takes an entrepreneurial approach to boosting by creating a small business out of it. Level 2 boosters work in groups of two or three people made up of a man and two women or all women. They coordinate a hit on a store that takes three or four minutes, stealing anywhere from a couple items all the way up to a hundred items (if they are stealing OTC drugs). Because Level 2 boosters operate in a group, their mission is to pull as many products as possible in a short amount of time and then later sell them.
A Level 3 booster is tactical and strategic, having boosted for many years. He now runs a larger organization that recruits Level 1 and Level 2 boosters. Most Level 3 fences make profits of $2.5 to $18 million, according to the NRF and RILA. Level 3 fences and boosters include all races and involve international organized criminals, gangs, Nigerian criminal enterprises, Irish travelers, and traditional mobsters such as La Cosa Nostra. Level 3 boosters organize at a high level, have a tight and organized network, and tend to send much of their profits to support overseas terrorist groups in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Ireland, or Italy.
booster bag
A common tool that Level 2 and Level 3 boosters use. It is made from an actual store bag taken from a prior boosting hit or obtained through
a legitimate purchase. It is lined with several layers of sensor-eclipsing material such as aluminum foil or cellophane. This masks the security tags on the clothing, CDs, DVDs, or other items and keeps the store’s security detection systems at the front from being set off.
Bureau of Economic Analysis
A branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce that reports the GDP (gross domestic product) every quarter.
Cargonet
A database created by the FBI and ICE in conjunction with RILA and local police departments.
cargo theft
For statistical purposes, the FBI defines cargo theft as “the criminal taking of any cargo including, but not limited to, goods, chattels, money, or baggage that constitutes, in whole or in part, a commercial shipment of freight moving in commerce, from any pipeline system, railroad car, motortruck, or other vehicle, or from any tank or storage facility, station house, platform, or depot, or from any vessel or wharf, or from any aircraft, air terminal, airport, aircraft terminal, or air navigation facility, or from any intermodal container, intermodal chassis, trailer, container freight station, warehouse, freight distribution facility, or freight consolidation facility.” After 9/11, cargo theft was estimated to be between $30 and $50 billion annually. ORC accounts for almost half of these losses.
Ciudad del Este
Spanish for “city of the east.” The second-largest city in Paraguay and capital of the Alto Paraná department, located at the Rio Paraná. It is part of a triangle known as the Triple Frontera (Triple Border), or
Tríplice Fronteira
in Portuguese.
clan-based militia
A militia rooted in an ethnic group in countries such as Somalia, created to overthrow the government. With more than 15 years of civil war and the absence of a central government, the rights of the Somali population have been left in the hands of sharia courts and clan-based local authorities with militia powers. Clan rivalries and the inefficiency of institutions that might otherwise establish a consistent rule of law have exposed Somalia’s civilian population to human rights abuses without effective legal recourse.
Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail (CLEAR)
A partnering organization between law enforcement and loss prevention professionals.
Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2009
Introduced to Congress in February 2009 in an effort to curb the illegal activity taking place in flea markets, pawnshops, and online marketplaces such as Craigslist and eBay.
credit card fraud
In 2006, total credit card fraud losses in the U.S. alone were estimated at $3.718 billion. Credit card companies paid the most, along with point-of-sale (POS) merchants. Internet and mail order and telephone merchants were in second and third places. The worldwide numbers are much higher.
Crips
Primarily, but not exclusively, an African-American gang founded in Los Angeles, California in 1969. Now a loosely connected network of individual sets, often engaged in open warfare with other gangs, such as the Bloods. The Crips are one of the largest and most violent associations of street gangs in the U.S., with an estimated 30,000 to 35,000 members. The gang is known to be involved in murders, robberies, and drug dealing, among many other criminal pursuits. The gang is known for its members’ use of the color blue in their clothing.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
A cabinet department of the U.S. federal government created in response to the 9/11 attacks. Its primary responsibility is to protect the territory of the U.S. from terrorist attacks and to respond to natural disasters. Whereas the Department of Defense is charged with military actions abroad, the DHS works in the civilian sphere to protect the U.S. within, at, and outside its borders.
deployed counterfeit ORC ringleader
Someone who supervises booster crews and is involved in cashing in fraudulent receipts from retail stores.
drug trafficking organization (DTO)
The major DTOs (drug cartels) are Mexican and Colombian and are said to generate a total of $18 to $39 billion in wholesale drug proceeds per year. Mexican cartels are currently considered the greatest organized crime threat to the U.S.
e-fencing
Describes boosters who sell stolen items on Internet sites such as eBay, DHgate, and Alibaba.
FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia)
Also known as the People’s Army (in Spanish,
Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo
) or FARC-EP. A Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization based in Colombia that is involved in the ongoing Colombian armed conflict. FARC-EP is a peasant army that has proclaimed itself to be a revolutionary agrarian, anti-imperialist Marxist-Leninist organization of Bolivarian inspiration. It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia’s wealthier classes. It opposes U.S. influence in Colombia (Plan Colombia), neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and paramilitary or government violence. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings
and taxation of the illegal drug trade. FARC-EP remains the largest and oldest insurgent group in the Americas.
FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas)
A semiautonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. FATA comprises seven agencies (tribal districts) and six FRs (frontier regions). The territory is almost exclusively inhabited by Pukhtoon (Pathan) tribes who are predominantly Sunni Muslims by faith.