Joint police blitz nabs 23 shoplifting suspects
Police from Canton, Northville and Plymouth townships arrested 23 suspects last week in a coordinated effort to disrupt or dismantle a retail shoplifting ring.
Retail industry reports show more than $100 billion is lost nationwide to large-scale theft of merchandise that is often resold for profit. Last year, Canton officers investigated 563 incidents of retail fraud—defined as the theft of merchandise from retail establishments during business hours, according to a police report. “These crimes not only lead to increased costs for consumers but also pose safety risks to employees and customers, particularly when suspects are confronted by store personnel or loss prevention staff,” police said.
The latest effort, in cooperation with 17 local and national retailers was part of a larger country-wide two-day effort called the Organized Retail Crime Blitz. This operation was also part of a larger national initiative in which more than 100 law enforcement agencies across 40 states conducted similar enforcement actions targeting organized retail crime, police said.
Locally, the crime blitz took place in 36 locations in Canton and officers worked with loss prevention officers from 16 separate retailers. In one instance, Canton officers arrested a woman outside a local shopping center and removed multiple articles of clothing from the pregnant woman’s shirt. That arrest was among the nearly two dozen made during the coordinated two-day effort to discourage thefts from local merchants.
"These boosters, which is what we call them, shoplifters, people stealing items, a lot of them are drug addicts who are going out there stealing these items. The high-dollar value items to sell to a fence," said Canton Police Lt. Michael Andes. Fences can be found at gas stations, liquor stores, or pawn shops where stolen goods are sold at minimal prices, often pennies on the retail dollar value. Fences then resell the items.
Canton Township Police Chief Chad Baugh said thieves keep improving their strategies and that the efforts of retailers to help stop thefts are critical.
Typically, loss prevention specialists who observe suspicious individuals carefully watch them inside the stores. If they notice a theft, they report it to police officers posted outside the store and if the individual leaves with stolen merchandise, officers stop the suspected thief and, if found with stolen goods, arrest the individual.
During the blitz last week, one suspect was found with a device to defeat the security tag in her purse. Police said the suspect was using it to pry security tags off several hundred dollars’ worth of clothing which she attempted to take from the store. Another woman was arrested outside the Michigan Avenue Home Depot where loss prevention agents said she had stolen several items. She entered a car in the parking lot where another woman was waiting, police said, and subsequently both were found to have outstanding warrants.
Police said the annual losses to theft in Canton Township alone totaled “millions of dollars” and that cost is then passed on to customers.
"Ultimately, we’re all paying extra for our items, and the prices continue to go up, and we’re here to combat that problem as well as bringing these addicts into our community that are committing crimes, and that's what we don't want to have here," Andes told a local television station.
