Ex-Shoplifter Finds New Way to Tap Retailers

The four customers who showed up once a week at a Miller’s Outpost store in Irvine always looked like they had come to browse. Actually, they came to steal.

They were a gang of professional shoplifters. Communicating among themselves with hand signals, the thieves distracted clerks and customers while stuffing pairs of expensive jeans underneath their floppy sweat shirts. Then they casually slipped out the door.

The weekly visits typically cost the store hundreds of dollars. They came off so smoothly that the sales staff never knew what hit them. With the pilferage undiscovered for months, the thieves returned again and again.

Wil Ramirez, the onetime leader of the shoplifting team, said the Irvine store became such an easy hit that the group would bump into other theft gangs there. “Everyone got wind of it if you found a good ‘paying’ store,” he said recently.

Now Ramirez is again putting his shoplifting knowledge to work, only this time it is for the benefit of the storekeepers. Ramirez, a crook turned consultant, puts on animated seminars to teach store clerks how to be wise to the ways of professional shoplifters.

There is a ready audience for his services. The FBI reports that shoplifting has increased 30% from 1985 to 1989, the latest data available. A recent survey of major retailers found that they lost 2% of all sales to “shrinkage”--an industry euphemism for shoplifting and employee theft.

Retailers are particularly concerned about the prospect of a sharp rise in shoplifting losses because of the recession. Unlike casual shoplifters who are drawn to crime by economic desperation, professional shoplifters loot stores in good times as well as bad.

And authorities say the gangs, rather than individuals, are a big part of the problem. Centered in Los Angeles, the gangs--many of which were organized in Colombia, Chile or other South American countries--have branched out nationwide, stealing an estimated $500 million in goods annually.

The gang threat is a big reason that Wet Seal, an Irvine-based chain of trendy, young women’s clothing stores, hired Ramirez to give pointers to its employees. Other retailers, including Clothestime, Jay Jacobs, the Gap and Miller’s Outpost, have paid for his services.

Early one recent Sunday morning, Ramirez paced nervously across the oak floors of a Wet Seal store at the Sherman Oaks Galleria and then delved into a bag of props. A handful of saleswomen sat in a circle around him, watching his every move.

He showed them how he used to stuff an accomplice’s oversized girdle with pairs of jeans when the store help was distracted. He demonstrated how a screwdriver with a fork on the end can remove security tags in three seconds.

Whether on stage or in-person, he delivers roughly the same message: The store with the lackadaisical staff is the most vulnerable target for the gangs. The best defense against shoplifters is attentive sales clerks who give a high degree of personal service.

“Customer service is the name of the game,” Ramirez said.

Before taking up his new career, Ramirez served a six-month term in Los Angeles County Jail for shoplifting. The detective who helped put him there--and who suggested Ramirez become a consultant--said the professional shoplifting teams have been a problem for several years.

The problem is as big as ever, he said. Police estimate that there are about 1,000 to 2,000 gang members floating between Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Houston. “It’s nationwide and it’s daily throughout the United States,” said Los Angeles Police Detective Russell Suggs. “Many of (the rings) originate in Los Angeles and go throughout the nation, shipping their stuff back to L.A.”

He said fashion clothing is a prime target. He recalled busting a fence (a person who buys and resells stolen merchandise) who had nine tons of stolen clothes. One gang sent box after box of stolen goods on a train from one of their road trips.

It is difficult to quantify just how much of the shoplifting is attributable to gangs. But shoplifting has been increasing since 1985 at twice the rate of other types of larcenies, from picking pockets to rifling vending machines. The FBI says 1.23 million shoplifting incidents were reported in 1989, up from 1.16 million in 1988.

A recent survey by the big accounting firm Ernst & Young found that 160 major retail chains lost nearly 2% of their sales to shoplifting and employee theft, a total of $1 billion. Jewelry used to be the favorite target because of its high value and ease of concealment. But clothing is much easier to steal and prices of designer items make it nearly as lucrative.

A team of professional shoplifters secreted 200 silk tops from a Somerville, N.J., women’s wear store one afternoon and then went to a nearby department store to steal more merchandise. Their one-day take: $17,000.

Slowly, the retail industry has caught on to the threat posed by the pros.

“Professional shoplifters represent a small portion of the total number of shoplifters, but they also represent the largest portion of merchandise lost,” said Carmen Monaco, a vice president for Ontario-based Miller’s Outpost.

Store owners are making better use of surveillance cameras and electronic anti-theft devices, said Jack Fraser, vice president of operations for the National Retail Merchants Assn. in New York. “We’ve gotten better at detecting (gangs) and spreading the word.”

Monaco said the shoplifting problem at the Miller’s Outpost store in Irvine has been brought under control, thanks in part to Ramirez, whom he credited with raising awareness of the store staff and managers and showing them “techniques that professional shoplifters use.”

Bob McInroe, director of security for the Wet Seal chain, said sales clerks have thwarted the gangs in at least seven instances because of the training they received from Ramirez.

His hair slicked back and wearing a dapper blue blazer, Ramirez talks at a furious pace in a thick New York accent.

Born in Puerto Rico, the 44-year-old Ramirez said he had been a thief all his life in the East. When he came to Los Angeles in 1986, he was recruited easily into a shoplifting gang. Ramirez said he made plenty of money to support a drug habit, since kicked.

There were few obstacles the gangs could not surmount. Ramirez said even undercover store detectives were never much of a problem because they could be easily identified, along with observation areas from which security guards watch for shoplifters through two-way mirrors.

To thwart security alarms, which sound if a garment is taken past the checkout with a price tag still attached, the gangs sometime use a “booster bag.” It looks like a shopping bag, but is lined with foil that defeats the security system. There is a hole in the bottom that allows a gang member to “boost” merchandise into it from below.

The crew could hit as many as 40 stores a day. A typical haul was 100 to 200 garments, usually not enough from a single store to alert the staff. By not becoming greedy, the gang could stay undetected and keep coming back for more.

“We worked five or six days a week, eight hours a day,” Ramirez said. “It was like a regular day at the office.”

Shoplifting on the Rise Kinds of Theft The categories of larceny-theft nationwide, as defined by the FBI: Purse-snatching: 1% Pocket-picking: 1% Coin-machines: 1% Bicycles: 5% From buildings: 15% Motor vehicle accessories: 16% All others: 23% From motor vehicles: 22% Shoplifting: 16% Retail Theft A January survey of 160 retail chains nationwide, with an average of 264 outlets each, showstheft losses and security costs spiraling upward. The yearly poll was done by the International Mass Retail Assn. and the accounting firm Ernst & Young. Total losses 1989 In dollars: $2.2 bill. % of retail sales: 1.91% Avg. total loss per chain: $20.7 mill. Average number of apprehensions per chain: Customers: 4,988 Average value of merchandise per recovery: $196 Employees: 362 Average value of merchandise per recovery: $1,350 Total security expenses: $363 mill. Average security expenses per chain: $2.47 mill. 1988 In dollars: $1.9 bill. % of retail sales: 1.88% Avg. total loss per chain: $19.5 mill. Average number of apprehensions per chain: Customers: 4,242 Average value of merchandise per recovery: $186 Employees: 350 Average value of merchandise per recovery: $1,227 Total security expenses: $302 mill. Average security expenses per chain: $2.1 mill. Shoplifting: Reported Offenses The incidence of shoplifting has steadily risen nationwide. But law enforcement officials caution that the figures, listed below in thousands, are conservative, because manyincidents are never discovered or reported. Source: FBI, Population-at-Risk Rates and Selected Crime Indicators.