The initiative is led by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office and collaborates with several law enforcement agencies, as well as retail organizations and state lawmakers.
It's been about a year since the Organized Retail Crime Unit was established. Officials at the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office say the first year has been a successful one: taking down two big operations that focused on stealing huge volumes of merchandise. The goal is to identify the groups responsible for large-scale chaotic theft and go after the ring leaders.
"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," said Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday.
That's the tactic of retail theft rings identified by Pennsylvania's Organized Retail Crime Unit. It's opened more than 65 investigations and charged more than 40 people in the past year-- recovering more than $2 million in stolen goods, including clothes, electronics and food.
"Our initial analysis of this problem in Philadelphia was that a very small percentage of people were committing were committing about 74% of our retail thefts in Philadelphia," said Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore of the Philadelphia Police Department.
Authorities identified two of those groups. The first, called the 5th Street Crew, is accused of dozens of incidents of retail theft and robbery, including Snipes and lululemon stores in Philadelphia and Montgomery and Bucks counties.
The other group, called the Philly Flowers, allegedly ran a scheme that involved theft and fraudulent returns at TJ Maxx and HomeGoods Stores, taking about $800,000 from 2022 to 2024.
"These crews are rarely stealing these items to keep them. They're looking to sell the items for cash," said Sunday.
The groups have also been known to sell the items online, in pawn shops, or send the items overseas, where they have a higher value.
Authorities say the ring leaders often recruit juveniles and people with mental illnesses to do the stealing, which they say puts retail workers in danger.
"We have these innocent people who are just working their 9-5 jobs and find themselves getting attacked," said Patrick Schulte, Pennsylvania's Chief Deputy Attorney General.
The Organized Retail Crime unit also collaborated with state legislators for tougher theft laws. Police say retail theft in Philadelphia is down 13%. With several active investigations, officials plan to continue the crackdown.
"If you participate in this behavior, you will be held accountable," said Sunday.
Schulte said, oftentimes, the juveniles in the cases are brought in as witnesses against the larger ringleaders of the theft groups, with the goal being to take down the organizers of the groups.
Sunday said those alleged ringleaders could face decades in prison.