May 14, 2009

Retailers tag-team against shoplifting ringsBy Maria HalkiasDallasNews.com

Professional shoplifting rings are making partners of fierce retail competitors that previously kept embarrassing losses to themselves.J.C. Penney and Target, Tom Thumb and Kroger, Gap and Pacific Sunwear, Wal-Mart and Home Depot share information and team up on stakeouts. Loss prevention investigative teams from Walgreen and CVS use the same radio frequencies and stay at the same hotels. That kind of close association in any other facet of retailing is verboten.

“Five years ago, it would have been unheard of for retailers to share any information,” said James Abney, a Dallas-based organized retail crime manager for Gap Inc.

Investigations by specialty apparel chains working together from Dallas to Houston this year returned $97,000 worth of apparel, he said.

Driving this unlikely cooperation is a growing awareness that chains are getting hit by the same modern-day bands of thieves, called boosters. They blend in with shoppers but end up costing stores billions of dollars.

As retailers collaborate, they’re getting the attention of local police and prosecutors. When stores tally losses into the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars and deliver surveillance evidence showing they were hit by the same people, authorities take notice.

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