Smash-and-grab robberies are nothing new, but a few local stores have been hit repeatedly over the last few years: Victoria’s Secret in Salinas, Ulta in Sand City and Apple in Monterey. High-end jewelers have also been robbed. (Store managers were unable to provide comment, and corporate media contacts for chain stores were unavailable by deadline.)
Monterey Police Lt. Jake Pinkas says it wasn’t until about fall 2021 that organized retail theft became an identifiable issue. In the last three months, he says, the department has investigated four organized retail theft instances.
“You started to see the more brazen [robberies], where they’re bringing tools in to take phones or laptops or break through glass,” he said. “That definitely seems to have started after the pandemic year 2020, and went further into 2021.”
In the last two robberies, Pinkas notes the Sunglass Hut in Del Monte Center lost approximately $4,600 in inventory, and the Apple store was robbed of approximately $40,000 in October. He said 2022 and 2021 had similar numbers of organized retail thefts, and these cases are often not easy to solve.
“Businesses and municipalities are slowly incorporating more cameras outside, but it’s hard to identify somebody based on their hoodie and face mask,” he says.
Sand City Police Chief Brian Ferrante says the thefts are more frequent now compared to five years ago, but haven’t changed much recently. His department has investigated three organized crime thefts in the last six months and was able to make arrests in all of those cases.
Criminal defense attorney Tara Higgins says most of these thefts are part of organized crime rings, and people involved in this “theft epidemic” are mostly younger women with police records.
“These things are in the news because they’re so brazen now,” she says. “The idea is to steal high-value goods that can be disposed of quickly. They can make more money stealing and selling stuff than getting a minimum-wage job.”
Higgins mentions a December 2021 robbery of Carmel jeweler Fourtané, in which three suspects entered the store with sledgehammers, breaking open display cases.
“They may not get caught in the moment, but they do get caught… a lot get caught,” Higgins says. “People don’t go into this thinking they’ll get caught, but they will get caught.”
These types of organized crimes aren’t specific to Monterey County. On Nov. 15, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced efforts to increase California Highway Patrol’s presence at shopping centers statewide as part of the Organized Retail Crime Task Force. The task force will work with local law enforcement agencies to make arrests and heighten visibility in advance of the holiday shopping season.
Since the task force’s expansion in January 2021, it’s been involved in 1,296 investigations, arrested 645 suspects, and recovered 271,697 items of stolen retail merchandise, amounting to nearly $26 million.