Putnam County Law enforcement utilizing the Tennessee Organized Retail Crime Prevention Act to target traveling criminal groups that steal thousands of dollars in merchandise from high-end merchants.
Cookeville Police Department Sgt. Charlotte Austin said the legislation addresses sophisticated criminal enterprises instead of shoplifting. Austin said one detective in Cookeville has already taken out approximately 12 warrants under this specific charge representing a total loss of about $160,000.
“These people that are doing this, they are stealing thousands and thousands of dollars worth of merchandise at a time and then their goal is to either make money off of that or resell it or, um, you know, to make money by some other means,” Austin said. “And so it’s just like an enterprise for them versus somebody that goes into a store and steals a shirt because they want a shirt.”
Austin said the criminal groups often travel the Interstate 40 corridor between North Carolina and Texas to target merchants in towns with easy highway access. Austin said the suspects frequently work in pairs or groups to remove anti-theft devices, use fraudulent discount codes from the dark web, or return stolen items for gift cards.
“We’ve actually recovered on the side of the road, a bag full of the, the anti-theft devices that were still chirping after one of these thefts,” Austin said. “And so they’re just hitting, you know, interstate towns where there’s easy access on and off the interstate, they can get in and out quickly, um, and so that’s just kind of their, their main objective there.”
Austin said the act is also used to combat the use of skimming devices placed over sales terminals to steal debit and credit card data. Austin said this stolen information is then superimposed onto other cards to be used for fraudulent purchases elsewhere.
“I anticipate that these people will keep coming through here on I-40 and trying to commit those crimes here and I’m just hopeful that we can try to mitigate that and, and prosecute them to the fullest extent whenever we can catch them,” Austin said. “I mean, I’m hopeful that it will, but whether or not it will, I don’t know because a lot of these people, um, that we’ve dealt with specifically are not from here.”
Austin said the law allows local law enforcement to look beyond state lines when investigating suspects who do not live in the immediate area. Austin said the high dollar amount of the losses is a primary reason these cases are gaining significant attention from the public and police.
“I think, you know, like always, just be diligent when you’re out and about,” Austin said. “If you’re in a shopping situation, if you see something that looks suspicious, if you see, you know, people that look like they’re maybe casing a place or they look out of place or, you know, what… you’ve obviously heard see something say something.”
Austin said shoppers should remain vigilant because the financial impact of these large-scale thefts eventually leads to higher prices for all consumers.