Information sharing is the key to stopping organized retail theft

Eventually, the ersatz cards are passed to other gang members, who go on shopping sprees, racking up hundreds or thousands of dollars in bogus purchases well before the victim even realizes his wallet is missing. Of course, the consumer usually isn’t liable for those purchases; as a result, the loss comes out of the merchant’s pocket, and they may also have to pay a penalty for accepting the bogus card.

“Some of these pickpockets are really good,” Williams said. “They’re pros—they didn’t just get up this morning and decide to start doing this.”

Three years ago, it became clear to the state’s attorney’s office that individual police departments were powerless to stop ORC activity on their own. Not only that, but they also didn’t grasp the enormity of the problem.

“They typically see just one crime and don’t realize that the event is part of something that’s much bigger,” Williams said. “It was incredibly important to make them see the connection.”

To that end, the state’s attorney’s office in 2010 created the Cook County Retail Organized Crime task force, which last year opened a new training facility that is housed in a 5,500-square-foot space donated by J.C. Penney in one of its mall locations. A vital activity for the center is to provide a means for sharing information between agencies, according to Williams.

“That will help us identify patterns that, in turn, will lead us to the perpetrators,” he said.

The cause is being aided by Motorola Solutions’ Real-Time Center Solution, which was introduced last summer. The solution enables the task force to integrate and analyze data from myriad sources, including surveillance video and images, sensor data, incident and criminal complaints, and arrest records. In the past, this information typically has resided in separate databases.

“Each retailer has its own loss-prevention team that is gathering this information, and we started to think, ‘What if they were able to share that information, not just among themselves, but also with law enforcement?’” said Greg Billings, vice president of Motorola’s professional services division. “They’d realize that they’re fighting the same criminals, and it would make it easier for law enforcement to get convictions.

“That’s what this solution is about—it’s like pulling together a lot of different bread crumbs.”