New York’s shoplifting epidemic is now so extreme {that a} shadow “resale financial system” has shaped throughout on-line marketplaces.
Based on a report from The New York Publish, a few of the metropolis’s most infamous thieves are hawking merchandise at a reduction costs on providers akin to Fb and eBay. Organized gangs are even offering their underlings “purchasing lists” of the particular objects they need stolen.
In some circumstances, thieves even stealing perishable objects akin to costly ice cream earlier than promoting them on for revenue to individuals at subway stations or native bodegas.
One legislation enforcement supply instructed the Publish:
They get purchasing lists for objects that embrace cellphones, energy instruments, purses… They carry stolen items to [illicit] wholesalers within the 5 boroughs.
Members of the booster crew get their money. Then the supplier, if you’ll, distributes them by his personal community, by way of storefronts, if he has them, or he places them on-line and sells to shoppers by Fb Market.
Final month, New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul touted her efforts to attempt to crack down on the difficulty, which is costing native companies a staggering $4.4 billion yearly.
Amongst her proposals included the creation of a state police group to prosecute organized theft rings and higher surveillance programs for the resale of stolen items.
“What we’re centered on is what has change into a complicated organized retail operation, the smash-and-grab efforts,” she mentioned on the time. “They go in and swipe the whole lot off the cabinets.”
Shoplifting throughout New York Metropolis has skyrocketed lately, rising 64 p.c between June 2019 and June 2023, according to the Council on Legal Justice. That is above even the 61 p.c bounce seen in Los Angeles, the place shoplifting is successfully decriminliazed.
