Private Investigators and Emerging Tech Are Helping To Crack Down on Beauty’s Retail Crime
Retailers such as Target, TJ Maxx, Bloomingdale’s, Gucci, Dollar General, Walmart, and CVS are members of The Loss Prevention Research Council, founded in 2000 by Dr. Read Hayes, a University of Florida research scientist. LPRC is a resident client at UF Innovate | Accelerate at The Hub.
California Highway Patrol’s Organized Retail Crime Taskforce has recovered more than $41 million worth of stolen goods since the program launched in 2019.
The task force is just one of many launched across the country in the last few months as part of an aggressive crackdown on organized retail crime. The issue has been splashed across social media through videos of flash-mob robberies and multi-million-dollar raids on stolen goods.
The beauty and wellness industries have avoided much of the attention until recently, when a string of multi-million-dollar beauty busts in California put the issue on full display. While firm statistics are scant, the California Highway Patrol told Glossy that beauty, wellness, and fashion items rank in the top 10 categories of goods stolen in organized retail crime rings through L.A. County.
According to the National Retail Federation, organized retail crime is “large-scale theft of retail merchandise with the intent to resell the items for financial gain.” It “typically involves a criminal enterprise employing a group of individuals who steal large quantities of merchandise from many stores and a fencing operation that converts the stolen goods into cash,” said the National Retail Federation.
Read more about Private Investigators and Emerging Tech Are Helping To Crack Down on Beauty’s Retail Crime.