Ben Dugan sat in an unmarked sedan in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood last September waiting for his CVS to be stolen.
He tracked down a man entering the store and watched as the thief stuffed more than $ 1,000 worth of allergy medications in a garbage bag, went out and did the same at two other nearby stores, before loading them into a van waiting, Mr. Dugan recalled.
The target was not a normal thief. He was part of a network of organized professionals, known as promoters, that CVS had been following for weeks. The company believed the group was responsible for stealing nearly $ 50 million in products over five years from dozens of stores in Northern California. The job of Mr. Dugan, principal investigator at CVS Health Corp., was to stop them.
Retailers invest millions a year to fight the rings of organized crime they steal in their bulk stores and then sell products online, often on Amazon. retail platform of com Inc., according to retail investigators, police officers and court documents. It is a threat that has been overwhelmed by the pandemic and the rapid growth of online commerce that has accompanied it.
“We try to control it as best we can, but it’s growing every day,” Dugan said.