Washington, DC – Today Congresswoman Dina Titus (NV-01) and Congressman Ken Buck (R-CO) introduced the Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act. This legislation would protect shops and retailers by targeting flash mob robberies and intricate retail theft schemes. It establishes a coordinated multi-agency response and creates new tools to tackle evolving trends in organized retail theft.

“Organized retail theft causes economic harm to businesses and puts consumers at risk while funding transnational criminal organizations worldwide,” said Rep. Titus.“The Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act will improve our federal response to these crimes and establish new tools to recover goods and illicit proceeds, deterring future attacks on U.S. retailers.”

Organized retail crime costs retailers $720,000 for every $1 billion in sales. The bipartisan Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act creates a unified government and industry collaboration to address this trend. 

Background

The Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act would:

• Establish a Center to Combat Organized Retail Crime at Homeland Security Investigations that combines expertise from state and local law enforcement agencies as well as retail industry representatives
• Create new tools to assist in federal investigation and prosecution of organized retail crime and help recover lost goods and proceeds.

Full text of the Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act can be found here.

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