(DECEMBER 2013)—Thanks to some smart detective work by our Resource Protection department, multiple charges have been laid against five suspects allegedly involved in an organized shop theft group targeting the LCBO.
The all-female group had two predominant members, whose illegal activities caught the eye of investigator Glenn Menzie in March 2013. While other members came and went, the two main subjects and their accomplices continued to be monitored and tracked by Glenn through detailed reviews of every incident report related to shop theft.
“Glenn worked diligently to link together 122 incident reports and the accompanying video footage to illustrate the repetitive and targeted campaign that the group maintained at LCBO stores,” says John Kennedy, investigator, Resource Protection. “Glenn was able to attribute incidents to the group from locations from Niagara to Oshawa, and many places in between.”
Glenn explains that a common feature among organized groups like this is the determination to frequent multiple locations. “This helps to avoid them being noticed too much or too often, and renders the full scale of their activities difficult to estimate. Or so they think.”
Once Glenn was able to confirm an organized pattern of theft, he then had to convince the relevant police services of his findings. Ultimately, Glenn worked with contacts in 12 police services jurisdictions and has provided packages of evidence to enable charges to be laid in almost all of them. He expects the balance to be addressed in the near term.
While Glenn has received positive feedback from the police for his efforts, he acknowledges the excellent work by the retail stores targeted by the group. “I was only able to track their activity from the incident reports and accompanying video footage. This outcome would not have been possible without information from the stores. Every detail is important.”
Glenn asked that retail staff continue to monitor the Person of Interest Resource Protection alerts that are circulated. “Please feel free to contact me directly if you spot one of the suspects on the alert,” Glenn says.