Stores wage stealthy war against organized theft rings

At Publix Supermarkets, security is more than just video surveillance.

An alarm sounds if someone tries to take more than one can of baby formula at a time. There are decoy shoppers to keep an eye on the aisles.

It's all part of the chain's effort to fight organized retail theft, a $30 billion a year problem nationwide.

"We want these professional thieves to know we are responding," said Shannon Patten, spokesperson for Publix.

And Patten's not talking about the teenager who tries to boost a six-pack; the culprits are professionals who band together to case stores, then clean out shelves of high-ticket items in the blink of an eye.

Publix has an entire department devote to identifying and tracking professional thieves, who steal mass quantities, then sell the products at flea markets, pawn shops and on websites.

"It's definitely not uncommon for them to steal about $10,000 worth of merchandise in a single day by hitting stores back to back to back," Patten said.

The most common item stolen at Publix stores are pricey razors. One Pinellas County location recently had an entire display wiped out in minutes. The store manager said he was in another part of the store when the thieves hit. Now the razors are stored tightly behind plastic guards.

Stores also place Sudafed and Sudafed-related products behind the counter, in part to combat makers of methamphetamine, who in recent years bought and stole large quantities of the product to make the drug.

Over-the-counter drugs are the top item stolen at Walgreens stores, according to Amy Spiehs, a Bay area-based loss prevention specialist with the drugstore chain.

"We take the problem very seriously," Spiehs said, adding that would-be thieves recently loaded up a for-sale garbage can with the medications. Within about five minutes, she said the crooks filled the can with about $6,000 in over-the-counter drugs. Employees caught the thieves as they tried to check out.

"They know what they're doing before they come in, Spieghs said. "They're actually provided with shopping lists so they'll come into store knowing exactly what they want to get and how to get it."

Besides giving workers extra training to spot the professional thieves, Walgreen's also puts alarms on infant formula and razor blades and places special hard-to-remove stickers on high-ticket items. The idea is to make the stolen merchandise easy to spot on the black market.

The impact of organized retail theft isn't felt only by the retailers, according to Casey Chroust with the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

In Florida alone, lost sales taxes due to retail theft is about $110 million a year, money that would be spent on education or unemployment benefits.

"It's a problem that costs communities and retailers over tens of billions of dollars a year, not only in cost of goods sold but also lost taxes," Chroust said.