Derek Bartos
Sun Sailor Newspapers
Law enforcement and private sector experts from across the country are set to gather in Plymouth in an effort to fight organized retail crime.
The Twin Cities Organized Retail Crime Association, in partnership with the Minnesota Retailers Association and St. Paul Police Department Professional Development Institute, will hold its inaugural annual conference and training Aug. 3-4 at the Crowne Plaza Minneapolis West.
Formed last year, the Retail Crime Association is a nonprofit coalition of law enforcement, prosecutors and high-level corporate fraud and loss prevention investigators. Together, the members work to ensure best practices in enforcement and the building of cases for organized retail crime.
“A lot of folks get organized retail crime confused with just shoplifting, but that’s not what we do,” said Charlie Anderson, association president. “We do organized crime that affects the retail and financial sector.”
This can include large crime rings that feature “boosters” who target specific types of merchandise in large quantities for illegal entry back into commerce, Anderson said. It can be done through a fencing operation that operates as a legitimate storefront, online commerce, shipping items to other parts of the country or overseas or selling them out of the back of a car, he said.
“And that is lower level,” Anderson said. “We’re also talking about organized crime syndicates with multiple layers of conspiracies that exploit retail businesses online and at the store to basically commit fraud on a large scale.”
Examples of criminal activity covered by the association include cloning credit cards, financial transaction fraud, identity theft and organized shoplifting rings. Offenders can also finance their crimes through benefit fraud, prescription fraud and student loan fraud.
While the local organization is based in the Twin Cities, Anderson said it is regional and represents Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin. There are roughly 30 similar organizations in the United States, he said.
The Twin Cities-based association has three basic functions, Anderson said.
First, it operates a website for its members that offers reporting, resources and analytics to enhance the identification of offenders and targeting of criminal enterprises.
“It allows us to share that crime information in real time and find the links,” Anderson said.
Second, the association facilitates quarterly information and intelligence meetings. Members will discuss trends they are seeing and assist with identifying suspects.
“Maybe you come from Maurice’s clothing up in Duluth, and you have some criminal activity going down in a certain part of the state,” Anderson said. “You know they’re affecting you somewhere, but you don’t know who to talk to down there. You come to the regional intelligence meeting, and you get hooked up with people who can help you investigate the case and bring it forth for charging.”
The association’s third function is to hold an annual conference, with this year’s being the first. The two-day gathering offers information, breakout sessions and speakers for a variety of topics to help coalition members train and network.
Anderson said Plymouth was chosen for the conference because the location fits the needs for the event and is also near the corporate offices of many members.
“It’s a great venue,” he said.
Topics covered during the conference will include gang fraud, wireless device theft, forgery, commercial fraud and intellectual property rights, charging organized retail crime and white collar crimes, shipping investigations, fencing operations, money laundering and cyber attacks. Attendees will include regional task force members, local police officers, officials from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, prosecutors, corporate investigators and members of the U.S. Secret Service.
The training will feature best practices designed to be taken back into the field to more effectively and efficiently combat organized crime.
As an example of how collaboration can take down an organized retail crime ring, Anderson pointed to the indictments made last year in the case against the “Mustafa Organization.” Numerous agencies and sectors worked together to build the case against the Twin Cities family that coordinated the theft of tens of thousands of cell phones nationwide that were later sold on the black market.
The 20 defendants pleaded guilty to the crimes earlier this year.
Anderson noted that, following the prosecution of the case, stores that were victims of the criminal organization have seen a substantial decrease in thefts.
“The more that police departments and various members of law enforcement and the private sector work together on these cases, the more success we’re going to have,” he said. “And lo and behold, our crime rates are going to plummet.”
For more information about the Twin Cities Organized Retail Crime Association, visit tcorca.org.