Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announces recent arrests, successes of retail organized crime alliance

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin says an alliance between states to combat organized retail crime has resulted in successful operations and arrests.

Griffin said during a Friday news conference that the Organized Retail Crime Alliance (ORCA) brought together agents from Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas was to combat retail crime by organized criminal groups that often travel the country.

The attorney general was joined by representatives of the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Conway police departments, The US Department of Homeland Security and 11 private industry partners such as Walgreens, which currently chairs ORCA.

The criminal groups generally target big-box retailers, Griffin said, but have also targeted some smaller retailers, resulting in higher consumer prices.

Jeff Pryor from Homeland Security said these thefts cost American businesses about $70 billion.

Pryor said these thefts can target things like children’s Tylenol, making it personal to parents in the state.

“Then all of a sudden we have a run on children’s Tylenol in the state of Arkansas and you have a child with a 104-degree fever,” Pryor said. “That becomes as real as it can get.”

The AG stressed the suspects arrested in these investigations were not single individuals, such as shoplifters, but professional criminals “working for organizations involved in a number of criminal activities.”

Griffin highlighted successes since the group’s formation, including the arrests of 17 individuals across three separate operations in North Little Rock, Little Rock and Conway. Eight of those arrested have been charged with felonies in the August and September operations, he said.

“Over the past month, coordinated ‘blitzes’ have resulted in 17 arrests in North Little Rock, Little Rock, and Conway of individuals involved in organized retail crime activities,” Griffin said. “These operations have also recovered stolen property.”

Griffin added that the 17 arrests in central Arkansas were in addition to a Blytheville operation earlier in the year that resulted in nine arrests.

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The AG explained that the individuals arrested were also charged with crimes other than retail thefts, such as fugitive warrants or drugs—and in one case a stolen car being recovered and returned to its owner.

“You may be going in for retail crime, but what you find is other stuff going on,” Griffin said

Griffin said that ORCA is a first-of-its-kind program and will act as a model as other states form alliances in regional programs to fight organized retail crime, calling the effort “an innovative approach.”

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