Dallas and Houston remain in the top 10 list of cities where retailers say organized crime gangs are hitting their stores, distribution centers and cargo shipments

Dallas and Houston remain in the top 10 list of cities where retailers say organized crime gangs are hitting their stores, distribution centers and cargo shipments, according to an industry survey released Wednesday.
Organized crime is up 6 percent from last year, with 95 percent of 129 retail companies saying their operations were victims of crime groups over the last 12 months, according to the National Retail Federation survey.
For the first time, retailers were asked about cargo theft. The excuse that goods have mysteriously “fallen off a truck” is not just a line in a TV police drama. Fifty percent of retailers said that they had experienced theft of merchandise in transport from a distribution center to a store in the last year.
Other cities on the unranked list include Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Philadelphia. Making the list for the first time are Las Vegas and Phoenix. Baltimore and San Francisco dropped off.
Over the last year, several states passed laws that increase punishment for organized retail crime. The Texas Legislature recently passed HB 2482, which is awaiting a signature from Gov. Rick Perry. The bill is going through the review process, said the governor’s spokeswoman, Lucy Nashed.
The bill would remove the minimum threshold value of $1,500 to qualify for a charge of organized retail theft. Punishment would increase to the next higher category of offense for anyone who organizes, supervises, finances or manages one or more other people doing the stealing.
The pending law also covers fire alarm tampering and the use of shields or deactivation instruments designed to prevent stolen goods from being detected by equipment installed by retailers.
Gangs steal an estimated $15 billion to $30 billion a year in merchandise. Criminals go after merchandise with high resale opportunities, according to the survey. In the past year, targeted products included not only common consumables such as cigarettes and razor cartridges but also the not-so-obvious golf balls, lingerie and branded goods from Crest whitening strips to North Face jackets.

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Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) is to be scrapped and replaced with a US style National Crime Agency (Nca).

The new organisation, due to come into force from 2013, will tackle serious and organised crime along with protecting the UK's borders.
The Home Secretary is to make a statement in the House of Commons later.
Theresa May told Sky News: "This will ensure we have a greater ability to focus on organised crime.
"Soca is not going to be disbanded. It will continue but as part of the new Nca, bringing together law enforcement across a number of types of crime at a national level that will enable us to really focus on organised crime.
"The drugs on the streets, these are being brought in by organised crime groups and these are the issues affecting neighbourhoods across the country."

Ceop's former boss resigned over the plans
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) will also be part of the NCA, but will retain its own brand and budget.
Its former chief executive Jim Gamble resigned last year when it was announced Ceop would become part of the new agency.
At the time Mr Gamble said the decision was not in the best interests of children and young people.
The launch of the NCA is part of the most radical shake-up of policing in 50 years which will see directly-elected police and crime commissioners replace the existing police authorities from next May.
The Government has said too many of the 38,000 individuals and 6,000 groups involved in organised crime, which costs the UK up to £40bn a year, have escaped justice.
Critics have warned the NCA will be too large to be effective, but the Home Office says it will be a "powerful new body of operational crime fighters" that will "strengthen the fight against the serious and organised criminality that threatens the safety and security of the UK".

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