AG Sunday’s visit highlights organized retail theft crackdowns across state

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday visited Montgomery County on Wednesday as he offered a status report on measures taken to crack down on organized retail theft.

Sunday touted the organized retail crime unit’s progress since state legislation in 2023 gave way to its founding. The agency, composed of 10 agents and five attorneys, also collaborating with other law enforcement departments across the state to focus on “larger scale, more sophisticated criminal enterprises” related to organized retail crimes.

There’ve been 65 investigations open and more than 40 people charged, Sunday said, as the entity recovered nearly $2 million worth of items.

“If our communities aren’t safe, literally nothing else matters,” Sunday told reporters at an afternoon press conference inside the lobby of a Lower Providence Township office building.

Selecting the location was strategic for Sunday, who identified upticks in retail-related crimes in Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs.

“Organized retail theft has impacted this area perhaps more than any other region in the commonwealth,” Sunday said, citing the volume of shopping traffic and volume of retail stores.  

“These are often swarm style thefts with groups of individuals who invade a store and move as quickly as they can to steal as much as they can,” Sunday said, classifying the incidents as “traumatic events for shoppers.”

Law enforcement officials noted several targeted locations across the Philadelphia region, including the 450-store King of Prussia Mall in King of Prussia. A place Upper Merion Township Police Lt. Declan P. Coyle identified as an “attractive location for retail theft crews,” with easy access to nearby thoroughfares such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Schuylkill Expressway as well as U.S. Routes 202 and 422.

“In Upper Merion, we’ve seen first hand the negative impact these organized retail theft groups pose to a community and its residents,” said Upper Merion Township Police Lt. Declan P. Coyle. “When they run from store employees, jump into a waiting vehicle to speed off, they put everyday shoppers and members of the public at risk of undue risk or injury.”

Andrew Block, Lower Merion Township’s superintendent of police, also acknowledged activity hotspots at Suburban Square in Ardmore and Target in Wynnewood.

“This is a regional problem,” Block told MediaNews Group, adding that “anywhere we have significant retail outlets, that’s where we’re seeing these spikes and increases in significant retail thefts, and clearly by the way they’re coming in and the way they operate and the way they leave they’re working for a large organization, a corrupt criminal organization.”

Officials spotlighted advances to quell organized retail theft rings with large-scale efforts in the region as they emphasized the importance of partnership with local and state law enforcement agencies.

“These cases require that law enforcement flood the zone. The criminals are flooding the zone and we have to match their effort,” Schulte said.The “5th Street Crew,” a Philadelphia-based group, “committed approximately 49 retail theft robbery incidents at multiple retailers” from February 2024 to May in Bucks and Montgomery counties, as well as in Philadelphia and New Jersey, according to Sunday.

Coyle underscored that “our department was able to successfully identify and arrest several of the suspects” accused of stealing from several brick-and-mortar establishments, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Kohl’s, Lululemon, Nike, and Snipes.

Another action, dubbed “Operation Philly Flowers,” involved a collaborative effort with Pennsylvania State Police and TJX Companies’ Loss Prevention department to investigate more than 50 people accused of “engaging in a theft and fraudulent return scheme at T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods stores from July 2022 to May 2024.” Activity “in and around southeastern Pennsylvania” resulted in more than $850,000 in stolen goods.

Groups often seek “high dollar items,” Sunday said, such as clothing, gift cards, small appliances, and technological devices.

“They are looking to sell the items that they’re stealing for cash,” Sunday said. “We are seeing that these criminal organizations are often sending the stolen goods overseas to places and countries where the goods have significantly more value than they do here in the United States.”

Deputy Attorney General Patrick Schulte noted “foreign actors” originating from countries in Africa, as well as Canada, China and Mexico. While he couldn’t disclose details, he acknowledged that “we’re essentially seeing foreign actors on all seven continents.”

Sunday underscored how vital cooperation with local and state police is with unit operatives.

“We must adapt to trends in order to keep up with criminals who put communities at risk,” Sunday said.

“We develop intel on these groups, and in many cases, track their movements and MO,” he said, through the use of “GPS technology to track stolen goods” and “AI translation technology to stop foreign actors from committing these crimes.”

Officials identified juvenile involvement in retail theft but their “focus is at the top of the chain” as build cases. Sunday said the organized retail crime unit aims to “collect enough evidence” in order to charge leaders and collaborators.

“We have to punish bad actors. We have to hold people accountable,” Sunday said.

In addition to increasing patrols, Block said the importance of the unit’s dissemination component between suburban and metropolitan agencies couldn’t be understated.

“We share that information, and then we compare it to the different crimes that have occurred, because a lot of times they’re crimes of similarity and comparison, and we’re able to make arrests on all of them,” Block told MediaNews Group.

Block has witnessed some decreases in instances of organized retail theft incidents locally, which he attributed to the unit’s involvement at the state level and the Montgomery County.

“It’s working together, it’s partnering with all our different law enforcement agencies within the commonwealth … and we’re starting to see some progress,” Block said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but since these law enforcement organizations are coming together, we’re starting to see some progress.”

“We’re never going to give up on this. It’s always a concern,” Block said. “Whether you live in Philadelphia, Lower Merion, Upper Merion, anywhere in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, when these things continue to happen there’s criminal elements coming into our communities and we want to prevent that.”

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