As the holiday shopping season approaches, retailers may want to take more preventative action in an attempt to minimize all forms of losses including shoplifting. In the last 15 years I have interviewed more than 300 shoplifters in an attempt to learn their tactics in order to help retailers to better protect their assets. The following is an interview we did in 2011 with a professional shoplifter who was part of Organized Retail Crime Ring located somewhere in the Eastern
Interview with a Professional Shoplifter
Q. Do you tend to boost (Shoplift) more during the Christmas Season?
A. Oh Yeah for sure. We really get busy from about the second week in November till Christmas.
Q. Approximately how often do you "boost" (shoplift) items during the holiday shopping season?
A. Everyday, including weekends. Often we start early in the morning and go till fairly late at
night.
Q. You said we. Does that mean you do not work alone?
A. There are seven of us in our group. But three of us do most of the "boosting"
Q. What do the others in the group do?
A. One of the guys is kind of our leader. He organizes things and "cases" out the stores and
gives us information before we go into the store. What we should look for and where we
should be careful.
Then we have another person who sometimes acts as a decoy and at other times is our
"look out" Basically an extra set of eyes. She warns us if the staff is coming our way or if
security is becoming suspicious.
One of the guys is our "runner" and basically takes the stuff we boost and gets it to the
warehouse.
We also have a person who works the computer and does most of the selling.
Q. Are most of the goods sold online?
A. I am pretty sure they are, but I am not too sure how that all works. I am not that great on
computers and all that online stuff.
Q. You mentioned, one of your members acts as an extra set of eye. How does she warn you?
A. By texting us. We have a few short code words that mean different things.
Q. How much do you steal during the holiday season.
A. Alot. I am not too sure what the dollar value is but its seems like alot.
Q. Do you find it's easier to steal during this time of the year.
(Interviewers note: Shoplifting is most active in the month of December.)
A. For sure. I think every booster (shoplifter) knows that this time of year is easier to "lift"
stuff.
Q. Why do you think this is this the case?
A. There are lots of reasons. Because the weather is cold where we live during Christmas, most
people are wearing big jackets and coats. This just makes it alot easier to hide things.
Its also a really crazy time of year with tons of shoppers. This usually makes it hard for the
staff to keep an eye on all the customers and almost impossible for "security" to track
everyone.
Q. Any other reasons?
A. Oh yeah. Often stores hire new people for the Christmas rush and most of them either don't
care or have no idea of what's going on around them.
Q. I have heard of cases where the part-time staff is sometimes connected to the people who
are stealing merchandise.
A. We don't do that, but I know a few "boosters" (shoplifters) who have people on the inside.
Q. You have covered several reasons why the holiday season gives you an advantage. What
about the fact that everyone is walking around with lots of bags full of bought merchandise.
Does that give you any kind of an advantage.
A. Oh yeah. For sure it does. It makes it really easy to blend in with all the rest of the shoppers.
It also makes it possible to slip different items into a big bag and no one really will notice.
Q. Do you use any special equipment?
A. I sometimes will use a "booster bag" or sometimes a "tag detacher".... It depends on what
kind of security a store has. One of the people who works with us has a "booster box". It is
a fairly large gift wrapped box which is empty and one side has a flap which is somehow
connected to a spring. So he can keep on stuffing items into the box until it is full and
nobody seems to notice. It looks very normal.
Q. Did he design the spring loaded gift box himself?
A. He made it himself but I think he got the idea from another booster maybe on the internet.
Alot of times we all share information with other boosters.
Q. Do you personally get alot of information online that helps you boost items?
A. Although I am not that good on the internet, I still get tons of information on there. My friend
is always online learning new things.....he is real good. He has learned how to outsmart the
different types of security systems that are out there, who is an easy target, who is a tough
target.....who we should stay away from.... all kinds of stuff.
Q. So who is, what you call a tough target?
A. Some of your big chain stores can be real tough and a bit too risky for us. Target, even
Walmart can be too risky, so we rarely boost items from these types of stores. There is so
many easier places to boost items from, without getting caught.
Q. What kind of merchandise do you tend to steal?
A. Everything....really nothing is off limits. I tend to lift more womens stuff. Cosmetics,
purfume, clothing, shoes, purses, drugs, vitamins.... you name it. Things that can be
resold fairly easily. The other person who works with us, boosts more men's kind of stuff.
Q. Have you been caught before?
A. Not for many years now. My friend did get caught last year during Christmas but because
it was so damn busy in the store and the owner could not be bothered going through the
process, so he just kicked him out and told him to never come back. Funny, while he was
getting "busted" I must have lifted at least a "grand" (thousand dollars) worth of stuff.
Q. What kind of store was it?
A. It was a drug store.
Q. Earlier you had mentioned there are seven people in your group. How long have you been
together?
A. Three years, but now we have a couple more people in training. They should be ready for
this coming Christmas.
Q. Training? They actually go through training?
A. Yeah like any other job they get trained. They learn how to "boost" without getting caught and
what to do if they get caught.
Q. How does the training process work?
A. We all kind of show them stuff....of how things work. Then for maybe a month or so they will
go out and "boost" items from low risk stores..... like the discount stores or a dollar store, then
they move onto grocery stores and so on.
Q. What's the point of "ripping off" a dollar store. Doesn't seem to make sense as there really is
no resale value to those goods.
A. It's all about getting experience and confidence. These stores have little if any security and
the staff is rarely looking out for "boosters". When I first joined this group, I went through the
process and stole thousands of dollars of junk from every dollar store in the city just to
become comfortable with how to pocket things. Then a moved on to something that was a bit
tougher. And once I got good and comfortable I moved to something even more tougher.
Q . It appears you and the other members of your group have been either very lucky or good at
what you do.
A. Maybe a little bit of both. I think we are good because everything is planned out and
except for our decoy. We look normal. We look very normal. We dress like most other
shoppers and no one ever suspects that we could be boosters. I think if we wore torn up
jeans and a hoodie, we would be under more suspicion and get busted more often.
Q. Alright, that's really interesting stuff. Thank you for your time.
A. No worry's
After losing a business to shoplifting and two years later being a victim to a shoplifting assault FJ Tarasoff made a commitment that he would help retailers protect their assets as well as the safety of all staff members. Twenty years later, Tarasoff is a leading authority in retail loss prevention, he conducts training workshops on various loss prevention techniques, including shoplifting and intenal theft and is the developer of “The Shoplifting Prevention Program” an affordable online training program. He has also been interviewed by numerous media outlets including, The CBC, The Globe and Mail, Small Business report, Hardware Magazine, Grocer Magazine, GlobeandMail.Com, Canadian Retailer and is a member Loss Prevention for Retail Industry and the UK Loss Prevention Group.
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