You've seen the videos of brazen smash and grabs like these,
often carried out in broad daylight.
>> Speaker 3: It's an absolute threat.
>> Speaker 2: A Chicago area Louis Vuitton, raided by 14 hooded suspects,
making off with over $100,000 worth of luxury items.
A flash mob style heist at an Oakland area Nordstrom.
This New York jewelry store windows mashed in with hammers.
Federal authorities and retailers are now sounding the alarm about the growing
danger of organized retail crime that is sweeping the country.
>> Speaker 1: For a while now,
I've been attempting to slowly ease the political left into admitting and
responding to the undeniable truth on the ground in major US cities.
Organized retail theft is harming many communities, and
we need to be real about it.
For one, I don't find it politically advantageous to deny
what everyone can witness for themselves.
But more importantly, the left loses credibility when its prominent voices
claim they want to build a better society for ordinary people while actively
making unmerited justifications for crap that actually makes life worse.
A prime example of the madness is San Francisco, where organized retail theft
has gotten so bad that half the stores in its downtown area have shuttered.
A recent CNN report revealed San Francisco's dysfunction with
a local Walgreens hit with three thefts in just 30 minutes.
>> Speaker 2: Ark Young law visited one Walgreens that's hit by shoplifters more
than a dozen times a day.
It happened three times while she was inside.
>> Speaker 1: In the 30 minutes we were at this Walgreens.
We watched three people, including this man, steal.
Did that guy pay?
He didn't pay.
>> Speaker 1: Now, that store has been dubbed the most robbed Walgreens in
the country, and I'm sure local political leaders must be super proud to
foster the kind of environment necessary to win that honor.
I'll get to more on that in just a minute.
But first, I want to get to the cover story that the left has fully bought into,
that these thieves are desperate, that they're living in poverty and
have no choice but to steal because they need to feed their families.
Now, first off, the assumption that crimes must be committed by the poor is
pretty damn defamatory toward disadvantaged individuals.
Secondly, that claim is without merit.
But let's compare economic rough patches and how they impacted crime.
Let's look at the data, take a look at this pretty incredible chart
using data from the John J College of Criminal Justice on crimes
committed in New York City between 2006 and 2022.
Now, you'll notice that there isn't a notable spike in major commercial
retail crimes during or immediately after the 2008 economic collapse.
In other words, the economic desperation that Americans were experiencing during
the last Great Recession did not translate to a significant uptick in retail crime.
But the data on this chart makes clear that there was a massive
spike in retail crime during the COVID pandemic.
And perhaps, just perhaps, factors other than poverty and
desperation account for it.
Now, look, to be fair,
the one man that we saw in the earlier CNN video could potentially fall into
the category of a lone thief who stole a little something because he was hungry.
I don't know, but I'm not really interested in petty crimes.
The real problem is the ongoing and
unmitigated organized crime that we're all paying the price for.
The issue has now become so
out of control that the federal government is getting involved.
Federal authorities now warn it's become an absolute threat to public safety and
public health, declaring that violent gangs, dangerous international
crime syndicates, and even groups with suspected ties to terrorism
are increasingly dabbling in organized retail crime across the United States.
Here's more on that.
>> Speaker 2: In April, three people were arrested in connection with an organized
retail crime operation that allegedly targeted California Home Depots,
authorities recovering $75,000 worth of stolen goods.
And Homeland Security officials say the organizations
have suspected ties to drug trafficking and terrorism financing.
>> Speaker 3: They're crime syndicates that could be tied to local gang networks
that maybe have established networks either from the Chilean or
Colombian threats or Romanian crews coming in from Eastern European that
are comfortable in certain cities.
>> Speaker 2: According to the company, this one crew robbed various stores more
than 20 times, allegedly stealing a total of $135,000 in merchandise.
>> Speaker 1: Now, Homeland Security officials are also concerned about other
groups, including the Aryan Brotherhood and crime rings from Eastern Europe and
South America using organized retail theft to raise funds for
their criminal organizations.
Raul Aguilar, who serves or oversees international organized crime cases for
Homeland Security, says there are definitely ties between certain organized
retail thieves and drug trafficking organizations, including some of
the cartels identified by the United States government as a global threat.
In addition, Aguilar also says that some of these networks are tied to
the terrorist financing networks around the world.
Now, a lot of these thieves are repeat offenders who are emboldened
enough to casually steal in broad daylight.
>> Speaker 2: Another alleged repeat offender this Delaware woman,
Ayanna Duramis,
who authorities say has been on an organized retail crime spree for years.
In February, she was caught on surveillance allegedly stealing two
Nespresso machines worth nearly $2,000 from a New Jersey Bed Bath and beyond.
And then here she is again at a nearby Home Depot a week later,
raising a hammer at a Home Depot employee who tried to stop her.
>> Speaker 1: Now, all of this criminal activity comes at a cost to all of us.
Some of us, the most economically vulnerable, pay a bigger price.
For instance, a Homeland Security investigations report issued last year
said estimates regarding organized retail crime found the average American
family will pay more than $500 annually in additional costs due to the impact.
That's not a small amount of money for the nearly half of American households
who reported that they could not afford a $400 emergency.
And that was data from the Federal Reserve prior to the pandemic and
prior to the inflation, driving up living costs even more today.
Since stores are closing in response to the uptick in organized retail theft,
workers are losing their jobs.
Walgreens alone has shut down five stores in San Francisco
due to theft since the retail crime epidemic began.
Now, keep in mind that those on a fixed income now have to spend more of their
resources to travel even further in order to purchase groceries and
other household needs.
But those added financial costs we all have to pay to accommodate organized
criminals is nothing compared to what some retail workers are dealing with
as they try to earn an honest living.
>> Speaker 2: Coordinated groups are targeting stores millions
of dollars worth of goods.
Retailers say they're growing more violent, putting shoppers and
workers at risk, sometimes with tragic consequences.
>> Speaker 2: What goes through your mind when you realize that your dad
was essentially killed over three power washers?
>> Speaker 1: You can't imagine that any piece of equipment in
Home Depot is worth a life.
>> Speaker 2: When you saw the video of what happened to your dad,
what was going through your mind?
>> Speaker 1: Wish it would have been me.
That worker was 82 year old Gary Razor,
a retiree working at the Home Depot in Hillsborough, North Carolina.
He sadly died after being shoved to the ground by
an alleged thief who was then arrested, luckily on a murder charge.
The case against him is still pending.
Now, there are other examples like the following.
At a Home Depot in Pleasanton, California, in April,
Blake Mohs, a 26 year old employee set to be married in August,
was fatally shot after he tried to stop a suspected thief.
Two people have been arrested on murder charges in that case.
Now, these two victims aren't even a fraction of the other countless
workers who have been assaulted as these thefts take place.
Now, if you're LARPing as a socialist who pretends to value labor, maybe your
act would be more believable if you showed just an ounce of concern for the workers.
But I don't know, that must be a bourgeois concern of mine.
So what now, what are the possible solutions?
The National Retail Federation wants the federal government to enforce
more regulations toward online sellers like Amazon, eBay,
Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
These are places where the thieves sell the stolen goods to which the federal
government has taken some action on.
For instance, the newly passed Inform Act now requires online retailers
to verify certain information about their vendors and
sellers in order to combat the sale of stolen goods.
Online marketplaces that do not comply with this law could face more
than $50,000 in fines for each violation.
But retailers argue that this is not enough and would like Congress to allocate
funds for a federal task force targeting organized retail crime.
Not really sure if that's necessary.
There are other proposals, though, in Congress as well.
The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, which would establish a coordinated
multi-agency response and create new tools to tackle evolving trends in organize
retail theft was introduced by the House of Representatives in February.
We'll see if that legislation goes anywhere.
Now, on a more local level,
there are about a dozen state task forces investigating the issue.
Homeland Security investigators say they're assisting in those efforts.
And over the past three years, the agency has tripled the number of cases it's
investigating, often using fraud related and money laundering laws to open cases.
But let's keep it real, Lax state laws need to be revisited.
Evidence suggests that there is a small group of people committing these
crimes over and over again.
They should not get to take advantage of bail reform if they're
recommitting the exact same crime.
A perfect example of this is highlighted in New York City.
Nearly a third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City last
year involved just 327 people.
Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6000 times.
In other words, there are solutions that can focus on solving
this problem without reverting back to mass incarceration.
In fact, we should maybe consider these solutions if we want to avoid going back
to the old model.
But look, I also want to address something broader.
This data I've shared with you, along with the current crime related trends that
I've brought up multiple times on the show,
has rubbed other left wing shows the wrong way.
In their view, stories like these serve as an obstacle to some of
the proposals on the left that, quite frankly, I disagree with.
I've never supported police or prison abolition, and I've yet
to hear a convincing argument in favor of these policies.
I have, however, supported the Nordic model for criminal justice and
continue to do so.
Over the past month, two different people on the left, one publicly and
one privately, urged me to avoid focusing on stories like organized retail theft.
While the information I'm sharing is accurate,
it allegedly hurts the left to share it.
I wanna be clear that while I agree with many left wing policies,
I'm not an activist and I'm certainly not a propagandist.
My responsibility is to be truthful to my audience and
to share nuances of all the complex issues we discuss every day.
Accuracy, fairness and nuance is what want to do.
And if I wanted to be a propagandist, I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it for
the salary I'm currently making.