Ten members of ‘brazen’ store theft ring arrested as cops set up sting at Los Angeles Nike outlet that has lost $1MILLION in merchandise to out-of-control shoplifting

Los Angeles police have begun cracking down on shoplifters who target the city’s stores during the day.

Up to 50 thieves at a time have descended on stores including the Topanga Westfield Nordstrom, Macy’s in Sherman Oaks and an Yves Saint Laurent in Glendale.

But police seized 10 people and intercepted thousands of dollars worth of stolen goods at the Nike Community Store in East Los Angeles after posing undercover as young couples on a day out.

“In this particular incident, they came in pairs of two, so we had five different crews come in and some of them acted like they were shopping, some of them had prams that were empty and they loaded the prams,” he said. Lieutenant Robert Peacock of the LA Sheriff’s Department.

“Nike has lost more than a million dollars in a year in that one store alone, so if you multiply that by all the other retailers that are being hit hard by this, it must be in the millions of dollars.”

A Nike store in Los Angeles was hit by a gang of thieves who packed merchandise into garbage bags and made off just days after an area of ​​Nordstrom was similarly attacked

As many as 50 thieves conspired to steal up to $100,000 worth of high-value products during a single raid on the Nordstrom store earlier this month, with some using pepper spray to neutralize security personnel as they swarmed the store.

One of the thieves was even seen pulling a large metal plank behind him as he fled, with a luxury leather bag still attached with a security tag.

A week earlier, goods worth up to $400,000 disappeared in less than a minute from the Yves Saint Laurent store in Glendale, when about thirty masked and masked assailants stormed through the store.

According to the 2022 National Retail Security Survey, shoplifting losses have increased by a quarter in a year to $94.5 billion.

And major retailers in the US have been forced to close stores over millions of dollars in losses as rampant theft plagues major stores across the country.

Walmart blamed shoplifting for its decision last week to close four of its stores in Chicago, just weeks after America’s largest employer closed its only Portland stores.

Six people were arrested last week over an Aug. 13 “flash robbery” at the Nike store, when the suspects were caught red-handed with burglary tools and $30,000 worth of stolen merchandise after their SUV was pulled over by LAPD officers.

Surveillance footage showed three people entering the store and walking out shortly after with garbage bags filled with stolen shoes.

LAPD Detective Lt. Robert Peacock (left) led the operation against the thieves who had targeted the Nike store

On August 13, a brutal robbery occurred at around 5:30 p.m. at the Nike Store in East Los Angeles, at 4585 Whitier Boulevard.

City Hall has promised a coordinated police response to the wave of mass shoplifting sweeping LA County

During the search, the police found several bags full of stolen Nike sneakers.

Earlier this month, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced a new task force to crack down on the looters, made up of several law enforcement agencies from Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Burbank and Santa Monica.

“These are not victimless crimes,” she said at a news conference.

“No, Angeleno should feel like it’s not safe to go shopping in Los Angeles.”

“No entrepreneur should feel that it is not safe to open a business in Los Angeles.”

The latest operation was coordinated between the LAPD’s burglary task force, the East Los Angeles Station Crime Enforcement and Summer Enforcement Teams, and Nike Loss Prevention.

The department said its purpose was to “apprehend suspects, deter criminal activity, and protect lives and property at the Nike Community Store in East Los Angeles.”

The footage shows men in dark hoodies and face masks looting the Nordstrom store in Westfield Topanga Mall, even resorting to attacking security guards with pepper spray

Two of the arrested suspects had outstanding warrants against them, including one for shoplifting.

The detectives also identified two criminal street gangs linked to organized shoplifting, authorities said.

“We coordinated with store security, we had a crime analyst that we depend on within our own units and they try to come up with patterns and when it’s most likely time for the store to be hit then we coordinated with the stores and so we’ve come up,” said Lieutenant Peacock.

The store at 4585 Whittier Blvd, which lost more than $1 million to shoplifting last year, returned $3,000 in stolen goods.