Chicago – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today co-led a bipartisan coalition of 38 states and territories sending a letter urging Congress to take action to address the rise in organized retail crime across the country.
“I am urging Congress to reintroduce a bill to combat organized retail crime because the complex nature of these crimes frequently involves multiple jurisdictions at the local, state and federal levels. Organized retail crime can take many forms and is often a mechanism used to support other types of crime. It is imperative that Congress pass national legislation to streamline the sharing of resources and information between law enforcement agencies and states,” Raoul said. “I created an Organized Retail Crime Task Force in Illinois to facilitate collaboration between local, state and federal law enforcement. Our bipartisan collaboration is calling for Congress to take action that will allow states to better collaborate and hold accountable the organizations and individuals perpetrating these crimes.”
In their letter, Raoul and the coalition explain that organized retail crime has contributed to financial losses totaling over $121 billion in the U.S. Additionally, 76% of retail asset protection managers report their employees have experienced violence at the hands of an organized retail criminal. Cargo theft remains a primary component of organized retail crime nationwide – disrupting supply chains and acting as an inflationary pressure on the price of everything from baby formula to clothing.
During the 118th Congress, the House and Senate introduced H.R. 895/S. 140, the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2023, and S. 139, the Organized Retail Crime Center Authorization Act of 2023. The legislation would have provided the necessary state and federal resources to bring the organizations and individuals behind this nationwide problem to justice. Now, Raoul and the coalition are urging the 119th Congress to reintroduce the measure to include increased federal penalties for supply chain thefts as a strong deterrent against the organized theft of goods in transit.
Raoul and several other attorneys general have formed task forces and created prosecution units to combat this growing problem. In their letter, Raoul and the bipartisan coalition note that legislation proposed in the 118th Congress would expand upon and synchronize state and federal efforts through the creation of an Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center at the Department of Homeland Security. The center would facilitate the information sharing necessary to address the complex cross-border nature of organized retail crime.
Attorney General Raoul’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force is the first statewide, public-private collaboration of its kind in Illinois and is designed to foster cooperation among retailers, online marketplaces, law enforcement agencies and state’s attorneys dedicated to targeting organized retail crime enterprises. The task force allows the office to utilize data and tips provided by retailers and to partner across jurisdictions with law enforcement agencies to investigate organized retail crimes and trace thefts to the source.
In addition to establishing the task force, Attorney General Raoul initiated changes to Illinois law to create and specifically define organized retail crime in state law. The law, signed in 2022, puts in place stronger oversight of online marketplaces to curb actors who exploit these legitimate platforms to illegally sell stolen goods. It also creates a statewide intelligence platform to help retailers and law enforcement agencies better coordinate their enforcement efforts. Additionally, the law requires online marketplaces to verify the identity of high-volume sellers, which helps police outlets used to monetize stolen merchandise. The law also aims to reduce a criminal’s ability to avoid prosecution for organized retail crime by allowing any state’s attorney where any element of organized retail crime takes place to prosecute the whole crime. The law also gives the Attorney General’s office authority to utilize the statewide grand jury to prosecute organized retail crime. Additionally, the Legislature appropriated $5 million to the Attorney General’s office to award grants to state’s attorneys’ offices and law enforcement agencies that investigate and prosecute organized retail crime.
Attorney General Raoul co-led the bipartisan letter with the attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, U.S. Virgin Islands, Washington and West Virginia.
