Many of the smash-and-grab robberies at large retailers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Minneapolis have been coordinated in an impromptu fashion on messaging apps and social media platforms such as Snapchat, making it difficult for law enforcement to track and capture the culprits.
Because the heists are organized spontaneously, with dozens of thieves responding to a cue on social media, police are struggling to find all those involved, since arrested suspects don’t often know any others.
“This isn’t ‘The Godfather’ by any stretch,” Steve Wagstaffe, a district attorney from San Mateo County, California, a member of a coalition of Bay Area prosecutors targeting organized retail theft, told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s the modern version of ‘Hey, there’s a party tonight’ and suddenly you have 100 kids showing up.”
In the week leading up to Thanksgiving as well as on Black Friday, robbers ravaged department and luxury stores across the Bay Area, after which only a fraction of the perpetrators were apprehended and arrested.
Sunday, November 21 marked the third consecutive day of organized retail looting in the Bay Area. Thieves ransacked jewelry retailers and other expensive stores, smashing glass and leaving thousands of dollars of property destruction.
On November 19, 20 to 40 people organized a burglary at a San Francisco Louis Vuitton store on social media. Only five of those burglars have been arrested since, San Francisco prosecutors told the Journal.
Only three of the estimated 90 people who stormed a Nordstrom in the Bay Area on November 20 were caught, another incident that was organized on social media, Walnut Creek police confirmed to the Journal. The criminals escaped with over $100,000 of merchandise in 25 getaway cars with their license plates missing or concealed, prosecutors told the publication.
These clusters of robbers are being referred to as flash mobs by law enforcement. They assemble on social media and descend on a retail store once a time and location is specified.
Some companies are pleading for police and government intervention in the wake of the spiking crime, which has stifled business and has caused many to incur serious property damage.
Last week, a group of 20 CEOS from large retail companies including The Home Depot, Target, and Best Buy sent a letter on Thursday urging Congress to disincentive more robberies by enacting legislation that inhibits thieves from making arbitrage profits with their stolen goods in the secondary market.