Content about Organized retail crime

Philadelphia -- A report released Tuesday by Checkpoint Systems and the Centre for Retail Research found that global shrink has reached its highest level since it began measuring the data in 2007.

According to the Global Retail Theft Barometer, shrink is up 6.6% globally and up 6% in the United States over last year. Costs globally are $119 billion and the overall shrink rate is 1.45% of sales. Driving the increases are rises in shoplifting, employee fraud and organized retail crime rates.

New York City -- Retailers lost $37.14 billion to theft last year, or 1.58% of retail sales, up from 1.44% in 2009, according to preliminary results of the National Retail Security Survey. The annual survey is conducted by the University of Florida for the National Retail Federation, with funding from ADT Commercial.

As in previous years, employee theft accounted for the largest (approximately 44%) portion of the losses. Shoplifting and organized retail crime was second, with 33%. Administrative errors, vendor fraud and unknown causes make up the rest.

Washington, D.C.  -- Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas were identified as the cities most problematic with regard to organized retail crime (ORC) rings, according to the National Retail Federation’s seventh annual Organized Retail Crime survey. Of the 129 retail companies, 94.5% reported having been the victim of organized retail crime in the past 12 months, up 6% over last year.

The cities most problematic for ORC rings were: