Colorado Retail Fraud Team Brings Agencies Together
January 31, 2019
Law enforcement officers in Douglas County, Colorado, are on the offensive against retail fraud. The Denver Post reports, “Multi-Agency ‘Strike Team’ Puts Heat on Retail Thieves, Fraudsters in Douglas County.” The strike force is called the Financial Investigative Regional Strike Team (FIRST), and brings together investigators from local law enforcement, the U.S. Secret Service, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, for a total of five agencies involved. At the beginning of this year, the team had already arrested two alleged counterfeiters, stopped a nationwide identity theft involving iPhones, and busted a credit-card cloning and skimming operation, among other accomplishments. Reporter John Aguilar tells us:
“FIRST, which launched in mid-October and operates out of the Douglas County sheriff’s headquarters in Castle Rock, has the singular focus of chasing down the fraudsters and organized retail theft rings that cause misery for victims and cost stores millions of dollars a year. It is a unique example in Colorado of collaboration and information-sharing across jurisdictional boundaries and even state lines. ‘Retail theft and fraud is the No. 1 crime we deal with in Lone Tree, and frankly, in the state,’ said Lone Tree Police Chief Kirk Wilson. ‘This isn’t a new problem — it’s just becoming more prolific every year.’
We also noted:
“In 2018, Colorado was ranked as the second-riskiest state for identity theft, according to a report from ASecureLife. The security firm calculated that 385 victims in the state lost more than $1.7 million to identity theft in 2017.”
Aguilar notes that, nationally, 92% of companies fell victim to organized retail crimes that year, with losses averaging over $777,000 per $1 billion in sales, according to a report from the National Retail Federation. Naturally, the internet makes physical jurisdictions somewhat irrelevant in such schemes, which is why the Secret Service (the only federal agency, we’re reminded, that investigates counterfeiting operations) and the Postal Inspection Service are on board. As Douglas County’s Chief Deputy Steve Johnson observes, such cooperation lets each organization escape their local “silos” see the bigger picture.
Cynthia Murrell, January 31, 2019
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Really well written article! Thank you for passing on and
I hage most definitely acquired several ideas.
Do you do webinars?