Ninety-five per cent of retailers said that organized crime was the biggest threat to their business, according to a study by Retail Council of Canada.
Retail businesses lost $9.2 billion in 2023 due to organized crime, nearly doubling since 2018.
“In Canada, for the last three, four years, we’ve seen a drastic increase in retail crime,” said Rui Rodrigues, executive advisor of Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC), which partnered with RCC to conduct the survey of over 20,000 retail businesses across Canada.
Roger Azuelos, owner of Emmanuel Men’s Clothing, lost nearly $5,000 when his store was the target of a three person theft ring.
“By the time I went to see the two other guys in the other part of the store, I came back and I saw one guy touching the machine, the credit card machine,” Azuelos said. “At the end of the day, my big, big surprise was that when I made the calculation of how much I did in the day, I found that I was short $4,900.”
In a press release, RCC said it participated in “targeted police blitzes” in which 121 weapons were seized. Nearly 18 per cent of the suspects arrested were repeat offenders.
“In Quebec, over the last probably a year, we’ve seen greater collaboration with the police services,” Rodrigues said. “So September 8th, we’re starting our national blitz where we work with police services to focus on retail crime,” he added.
Shoplifting came as the second biggest threat with 87 per cent of respondents saying that it was their number one concern, followed by return frauds came in as the third with 56 per cent.
The study also revealed that since 2018 retailers have reported a 61 per cent increase in theft-related assaults and violence and that more than three-quarters of them confirm that this violence is intensifying in their stores.
“This is not a series of isolated incidents: it is an organized, violent and structured phenomenon that affects all types of businesses, from large chains to independent merchants,” said Michel Rochette, president of the RCC Quebec.
The RCC says that they would like to see changes to the criminal code as well as bail reform to help reduce organized retail crime.
“Right now, these criminals who are perceived to be in low-level crime or retail crime, it’s a revolving door. They get arrested, they’re released, and they’re back out same day or next day and they are committing the same crimes. That’s not anecdotal, we see it through our blitzes, when we’re making this arrest. So we need to see legislative reform.”
In the meantime, retailers have been making more investments in CCTV technology, in showcases, and in security guards, according to the RCC, to confront organized retail crime.
