Many petty thefts, big sting

By Abigail Goldman

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Through the wide eye of a security camera, it comes across casual: A guy, buried beneath his baseball cap in the liquor aisle of a Las Vegas supermarket, slips 16 bottles of booze, one by one, into the mouth of his big blue jacket, then strolls out the door — clink, clink, clink. Another guy, in another supermarket, crouched in the cosmetics section, wearing a black bandana and a backpack backward, across his chest, shovels dozens of deodorants into his makeshift kangaroo pouch, zips it, then bounds to the parking lot — clack, clack, clack.

A third guy, in a third supermarket, walks down the laundry aisle and grabs two big jugs of Tide detergent. One handle in each hand, arms swinging at the sockets, he runs out the door — slosh, slosh, slosh.

This is how roughly 30 journeyman thieves, working independently and over months, funneled more than $100,000 in stolen supermarket merchandise to resale ringleaders, whose three storage sheds were raided by Metro last week.

A partial accounting of what detectives found in those sheds includes: 2,078 bottles of various shampoos, 420 razors, 948 razor blade packs, 296 bottles of Axe body spray, 447 sticks of deodorant, 619 bottles of Fantasia Frizz Busters Serum, 150 bottles of tequila, 120 cans of baby formula, 50 full-size jugs of Tide detergent, 475 bottles of Nivea skin lotion, at least 320 rolls of toilet paper, 250 bottles of body wash, more than 50 bottles of perfume and a big box of AA batteries.

The racket was perfectly simple — word got out that certain people were paying cash for supermarket goods, so thieves applied themselves. The racket also was problematically involved — so many people started stealing, and getting caught, that it was only a matter of time until Metro found out.

It became clear something was awry in mid-December, when the number of shoplifting complaints and arrests started going up, Sgt. Ed Collins said. Those arrests turned into leads, and those leads took detectives to a downtown apartment complex Feb. 10 — the stolen shampoo nerve center.

Here’s how it worked: Shoplifters took their goods to the central courtyard of an apartment complex. Two apartments looked onto the courtyard, and behind each door, a buyer waited for goods. Merchandise was purchased for a fraction of its value (four bottles of Head & Shoulders paid out $10) and phase one was complete. In phase two, the goods were resold for moderate discounts at places like swap meets, Collins said.

Three people Metro detectives have identified as ringleaders in the scam have been arrested on unrelated charges, though Collins says it’s only a matter of time until his detectives file charges for the stolen grocery goods. About a dozen shoplifters allegedly working for the ringleaders have been charged with petty larceny too, but maybe not for long.

If the police can prove they entered a store with intent to steal, Collins said, a prosecutor can charge them with felony burglary, and this is precisely what the police intend to do. Thieves connected to this resale scam, or similar scams in the future, provided their cases have not been fully adjudicated, are going to find themselves in the cross hairs of a department trying to send a message: We’d love to slap you with a felony, so take those bottles out of your jacket.

All the stolen goods are now sitting in a Metro locker, hidden somewhere in northeast Clark County. Two retail chains — Albertsons and Target — took back around $40,000 worth of their merchandise. There’s still more to divvy out. And, maybe, more to find.

“This is a vast enterprise,” Collins said. “I don’t think we know just how big it is.”