Nationwide retail crime crackdown leads to over 400 arrests: 'One of the largest and most visible efforts'

Published

1 month ago

June 5, 2025

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Police departments around the country launched a crackdown on the post-pandemic scourge of organized retail theft — making more than 400 arrests, law enforcement officials told The Post on Wednesday.

The coordinated nationwide blitz included help from major chains — including Home Depot, Walgreens, Ulta Beauty, Target, Meijer, Kroger and lululemon — that have seen their bottom lines squeezed by the rampant lawlessness.

The clampdown, conducted last week, spanned 28 states and was led by the organized crime task force in Illinois Cook County, with support from the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the National District Attorneys Association.

This coordinated crackdown is one of the largest and most visible efforts we’ve seen to date in combating organized retail crime and its long overdue, said Gene Petrino, a retired SWAT commander and owner of Survival Response, which helps companies train employees to deal with workplace violence.

These crimes arent just petty theft theyre highly structured operations that fund broader criminal activity, and theyve had a devastating impact on retailers, employees and consumers across the country.

In one such incident, a California mother-of-three, Michelle Mack, ran a crime ring dubbed “California Girls” that looted an estimated $8 million worth of cosmetics and beauty products from Ulta and Sephora stores. She was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay $3 million in restitution.

The organized thefts forced many drugstores to lock away basic staples, which led to a drop in sales as frustrated customers were turned off by the anti-theft tactics.

These crime rings are one of the most significant challenges in our industry, Marty Maloney, Walgreens director of media relations, told The Post.

The chain worked with law enforcement partners at more than 40 locations across 20 cities last week, Maloney said.

Ulta had teams stationed across nine states, passing along information on theft incidents to law enforcement officials.

Retail crime rings which involve more than one person targeting specific stores and then hawking the stolen goods have emerged as a growing threat over the past few years.

While it’s difficult to track organized retail crime specifically, retailers reported 93% more shoplifting incidents on average in 2023 compared with 2019, according to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation.

Those surveyed also reported a 90% jump in related dollar losses over the same period.

The goal of the nationwide operation is to have one day where we focus and concentrate on [retail theft] and we share intelligence about it about what we learned about the network, so that gives us more tools on how to take this network down, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen ONeill Burke told CNBC, which earlier reported on the police blitz.

On her first day in office, ONeil Burke ordered prosecutors to pursue felony charges when the value of the stolen goods exceeds $300 a sharp change from the prior rules of only pursuing thefts above $1,000 or suspects with 10 or more prior convictions.

Since Dec. 1, her office has filed charges in 1,450 felony retail theft cases, according to CNBC.

While this nationwide action is a strong step in the right direction, enforcement alone isnt enough, Petrino told The Post.

He stressed that law officials need to better collaborate with retail loss prevention teams and put in place stronger penalties for repeat offenders.

Retailers, meanwhile, should invest in improved surveillance, staff training and data analytics, Petrino added.

US

Donald Trump sending ‘top of the line’ weapons to support NATO in Ukraine war

Published

2 hours ago

July 15, 2025

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Donald Trump sending 'top of the line' weapons to support NATO in Ukraine war

Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.

Speaking with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.

“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”

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Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.

Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.

The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.

Later on Monday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Mr Trump and said he was “grateful” for the US president’s “readiness to help protect our people’s lives”.

After criticising Vladimir Putin’s “desire to drag it out”, he said he appreciated “preparing a new decision on Patriots for Ukraine” – and added Kyiv is “working on major defence agreements with America”.

It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump over Mr Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.

During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call”, but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.

“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.

Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.

After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”

Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.

He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.

US

Trump is clearly fed up with Putin – but will his shift in tone force Russia to the negotiating table?

Published

2 hours ago

July 15, 2025

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Trump is clearly fed up with Putin - but will his shift in tone force Russia to the negotiating table?

As ever, there is confusion and key questions are left unanswered, but Donald Trump’s announcement on Ukraine and Russia today remains hugely significant.

His shift in tone and policy on Ukraine is stark. And his shift in tone (and perhaps policy) on Russia is huge.

Ever since Mr Trump returned to the White House he has flatly refused to side with Ukraine over the Russian invasion.

He has variously blamed Ukraine for the invasion and blamed Joe Biden for the invasion, but has never been willing to accept that Russia is the aggressor and that Ukraine has a legitimate right to defend itself.

Today, all that changed. In a clear signal that he is fed up with Vladimir Putin and now fully recognises the need to help Ukraine defend itself, he announced the US will dramatically increase weapons supplies to Kyiv.

But, in keeping with his transactional nature and in a reflection of the need to keep his isolationist “America-First” base on side, he has framed this policy shift as a multi-billion dollar “deal” in which America gains financially.

American weapons are to be “sold” to NATO partners in Europe who will then either transfer them to Ukraine or use them to bolster their own stockpiles as they transfer their own existing stocks to Kyiv.

“We’ve made a deal today,” the president said in the Oval Office. “We are going to be sending them weapons, and they are paying for them. We are manufacturing, they are going to be paying for it. Our meeting last month was very successful… these are wealthy nations.”

This appears to be a clever framing of the “deal”. Firstly, America has always benefited financially by supplying weapons to Ukraine because much of the investment has been in American factories, American jobs and American supply chains.

While the details are not entirely clear, the difference now appears to be that the weapons would be bought by the Europeans or by NATO as an alliance.

The Americans are the biggest contributor to NATO, and so if the alliance is buying the weapons, America too will be paying, in part, for the weapons it is selling.

However, if the weapons are being bought by individual NATO members to replenish their own stocks, then it may be the case that the US is not paying.

NATO officials referred all questions on this issue to the White House, which has not yet provided clarity to Sky News.

It is also not yet clear what type of weapons will be made available and whether it will include offensive, as well defensive, munitions.

A key element of the package will likely be Patriot missile batteries, 10 to 15 of which are believed to be currently in Europe.

Under this deal, it is understood that some of them will be added to the six or so batteries believed to be presently in Ukraine. New ones would then be purchased from US manufacturers to backfill European stocks. A similar arrangement may be used for other weapons.

The president also issued the Russian leader with an ultimatum, saying that Putin had 50 days to make a peace deal or else face 100% “secondary tariffs”. It’s thought this refers to a plan to tariff, or sanction, third countries that supply Russia with weapons and buy Russian oil.

This, the Americans hope, will force those countries to apply pressure on Russia.

But the 50-day kicking of the can down the road also gives Russia space to prevaricate. So, a few words of caution: first, the Russians are masters of prevarication. Second, Trump tends to let deadlines slip. And third, we all know Trump can flip-flop on his position repeatedly.

Maybe the most revealing aspect of all this came when a reporter asked Mr Trump: “How far are you willing to go if Putin sends more bombs in the coming days?”

“Don’t ask me questions like that…”

Mr Trump doesn’t really know what to do if Mr Putin continues to take him for a ride.

Mr Biden, before him, supplied Ukraine with the weapons to continue fighting.

If Mr Trump wants to end this, he may need to provide Ukraine with enough weapons to win.

But that would prolong, or even escalate, a war he wants to end now.

There’s the predicament.

Technology

Nvidia says U.S. government will allow it to resume H20 AI chip sales to China

Published

3 hours ago

July 15, 2025

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Nvidia says U.S. government will allow it to resume H20 AI chip sales to China

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang attends a roundtable discussion at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 11, 2025.

Sarah Meyssonnier | Reuters

Nvidia announced Tuesday that it hopes to resume sales of its H20 general processing units to clients in China, saying that the U.S. government had assured the company would be granted licenses.

Nvidia’s sales of the H20 chips, which had been designed specifically to keep them out of export controls on China, were halted in April.

“The U.S. government has assured NVIDIA that licenses will be granted, and NVIDIA hopes to start deliveries soon,” the company said in a statement.

This comes against the backdrop of a preliminary trade deal between Washington and Beijing last month that sought China to resume rare earth exports and the U.S. to relax tech export controls.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in recent months has ramped up his lobbying against export controls, arguing that they inhibited American tech leadership. In May, Huang said chip restrictions had already cut Nvidia’s China market share nearly in half.

Huang also announced a new “fully compliant” GPU, NVIDIA RTX PRO, saying it was ideal for smart factories and logistics.

The potential change in U.S. stance follows a meeting between Huang and U.S. President Donald Trump last week.

In his meeting with Trump and U.S. policymakers, Huang had reaffirmed Nvidia’s support for the administration’s job creation and onshoring efforts, as well as the aim for America to lead in global AI, the company said.

Meanwhile, in Beijing, it was confirmed that Huang has met with government and industry officials to discuss the benefits of AI and ways for researchers to advance safe and secure AI for the benefit of all.