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2012 Archives
Excerpts from
GAO-11-675: Efforts to Combat Organized Retail
Crime
The U.S. Government Accountability Office ORC report
June 2011
Law Enforcement Agencies Collaborate with Retailers
to Investigate ORC, and Federal Agencies Are Taking
Steps to Improve ORC Case Tracking
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
Efforts: Continued;
Since 2009, ICE has been involved in several
initiatives intended to further evaluate its role
and enhance efforts related to combating ORC. The
ORC Pilot Program, the first of these initiatives,
was launched in July 2009, in four cities with known
ORC activity: Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, and New
York. The program focused on four program areas: (1)
development of a database with retail industry
contacts; (2) development of a threat assessment to
help determine the extent of ORC crimes in which ICE
has jurisdiction; (3) enhancing efforts to explore
how ORC groups are exploiting vulnerabilities in the
banking system to launder profits; and (4)
development of a tracking system to assess ICE
involvement in ORC cases. In March 2010, ICE
extended the program for one year and expanded it to
include coordination with the ICE National Cyber
Crimes Center, which targets various schemes
perpetrated on the Internet, including fraud, money
laundering, and selling of credit card or other
financial information.
According to program officials, at the completion of
the ORC Pilot Program in March 2011, ICE made
progress in all key areas identified. For example,
ICE affirmed that many ORC cases have an
international nexus and can be investigated by ICE
special agents, and ICE continues to identify a
collection of red-flag indicators of suspicious
banking activity related to ORC. In regard to
developing a tracking system, ICE created a program
code for ORC within its case management system,
which is intended to allow headquarters to track
case statistics, facilitate identification of
potential trends between ORC cases, and help inform
resource decisions. During the pilot program, 83
criminal cases were associated with ORC, resulting
in 38 criminal arrests, 29 indictments, and 14
convictions. While 14 of these cases were
investigated at the pilot program locations, the
remaining cases were investigated at 23 additional
domestic and international offices in which ICE
special agents are located.26 According to ICE
officials, these cases have led to the seizure of
nearly $4.9 million in cash, property, and money
instruments.
In February 2011, ICE announced the expansion of the
ORC Pilot ProgramIn February 2011, ICE announced the
expansion of the ORC Pilot Program into an ongoing
national initiative known as SEARCH (Seizing
Earnings and Assets from Retail Heists). As part of
this announcement, all field units were advised to
begin using the ORC program code for all criminal
investigations opened under the SEARCH Initiative.
Similar to the FBI, ICE supervisors also conduct a
quarterly case review, which is intended, in part,
to ensure that all applicable program codes are
entered. According to ICE officials, the SEARCH
initiative will build upon the partnerships with
private industry developed as part of the ORC Pilot
Program and operates on the assumption that federal
anti-money laundering statutes may be among the best
mechanisms to target individuals involved in ORC
activity. According to ICE, by following the money
trail, investigators can often build a case to high
levels of a criminal organization. For example, ICE
agents were involved in one case in which illicit
proceeds from the sale of stolen video games on eBay
was tied to an investigation of criminal
organizations involved in running the Vietnam
underground economy, which included trade in stolen
U.S. identities and financial information. In April
2011, ICE indicated that 48 additional cases
involving components of ORC had been initiated since
the launch of the SEARCH Initiative. (Source
gao.gov)
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