Attorney General Ashley Moody announces statewide retail crime task force during Polk visit

WINTER HAVEN – Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced a new statewide organized retail crime task force during a news conference at the Polk County Sheriff's Office on Thursday.

Alongside Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, Moody said the team will prevent organized retail crime in Florida with an interactive database and will consist of investigators, state attorneys, local law enforcement officials, Florida Retail Federation officials, and retail business representatives.

Since Moody took over as Attorney General, she said her statewide prosecutors have filed nearly 60 cases involving more than 250 people suspected of organized retail theft or related crimes.

"These are massive rings, sophisticated organizations with leaders that use others in a coordinated way to infiltrate numerous stores within numerous jurisdictions to create a criminal enterprise in which they steal and then sell stolen merchandise," Moody said at the news conference.

Lakeland: Police Department officers on paid administrative leave after shooting, killing suspect

More: Mental Health: Woman with mental illness wielding a shovel is killed by highly trained deputy

She said officials in Florida do a good job of preventing organized theft and crime in their individual areas, but once the criminals involved in organized theft go outside of a singular jurisdiction, it's harder to piece organizations together to connect the crimes.

"If you have leaders, law enforcement officials, and prosecutors announce to criminals that they are deprioritizing crimes, criminals will focus on those crimes to make a profit," Moody said.

Increase in retail store crime

Seventy percent of store owners across the nation have reported an increase in crime, according to Moody. She said Florida's new task force will be an organized retail crime exchange.

"A database and exchange of information, which allows us to track what seem like single incidents of theft and allow us to put together the pieces to identify the larger-scale criminal organizations that are going into our stores and stealing large amounts of merchandise," Moody said.

She said the key to preventing these crimes is connecting the cases so the members of the task force can identify the leaders of the criminal organizations and the people they’re recruiting to conduct their schemes.

According to Moody, these organized crimes don't only affect retailers.

"Every piece of merchandise stolen goes into a cost analysis, which increases prices for everyday Floridians," Moody said.

Polk County: Burglary suspects wounded after turning car toward Polk deputies, Sheriff's Office says

The leaders of these organizations often recruit juveniles that they think won’t be held accountable because they’re underage, she said.

Judd said that if a flash mob storms a Polk County store and steals, they’re all going to jail.

“And if we don’t catch them at the store, they jump out their cars, we’re going to ram them in the parking lot and put them in jail,” Judd said at the conference. “That’s a guarantee.”

In a release, Judd said criminals are systematically and strategically taking advantage of our open and trusting society.

“This task force will allow law enforcement and retailers to easily work together and efficiently share information and resources so that we can root out and arrest these thieves, and send them to prison where they belong,” Judd said in a release.

Organized retail crime prevention

At the news conference, Judd cited an incident in which a van pulled up to a Walmart with a trunk full of new televisions and tried to return one at a time. When the Sheriff’s Office was notified, Judd said they began an investigation.

“We found a multimillion-dollar organized retail crime platform,” Judd said.

Six retail crime suspects were hitting between eight and 10 businesses a day throughout 14 counties in May 2019, Judd said.

“They had a system whereby they didn’t go back to the same store until people had an opportunity to replenish,” Judd said.

He said the Sheriff’s Office estimates $2 million of merchandise was stolen in that operation.

“We found out that they were altering and trying to return these,” Judd said. “It affected 39 counties in Florida.”

A release said the Attorney General’s Office and Florida Retail Federation will operate the database, the Truth Florida Organized Retail Exchange, which is available by invitation to retailers and law enforcement agencies that complete specialized training.

Through the TFORCE database, retailers will be able to upload data about recent retail theft occurrences, officials said in a release.

Data entries about stolen items, suspect descriptions, method of operation, and vehicle identification will make it easier to identify a nexus among seemingly single-incident thefts, the Attorney General Office said in a release and could lead to organizational charges and increased penalties.

Ledger reporter Rebecca Lee can be reached at Rlee3@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @RELReports.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Florida AG joins Sheriff Judd to announce retail crime taskforce