TECHNOLOGY Tom Meehan, CFI asiandelight / Shutterstock.com
Meehan is retail technology editor for LPM as well as chief strategy officer and chief information security officer for CONTROLTEK. Previously, Meehan was director of technology and investigations with Bloomingdale’s, where he was responsible for physical security, internal investigations, and systems and data analytics. He currently serves as the chair of the Loss Prevention Research Council’s (LPRC) innovations working group. Meehan recently published his first book titled Evolution of Retail Asset Protection: Protecting Your Profit in a Digital Age. He can be reached at TomM@LPportal.com.
The Link Between ORC and Human Trafficking A
Capturing an accurate global snapshot of human trafficking data is virtually impossible.
global pandemic, large numbers of men, women, and children are even more susceptible to exploitation. What we are seeing evolve at an alarming pace is the growing trend of in-store criminal activity fueling human trafficking.
crews facilitating labor trafficking, or those addicted to drugs who are involved in labor trafficking. Many times, underinvestigated crimes occur because there is no nexus of crimes to ORC. Yet, as complex as this may seem, retailers play one of the The Retail Connection most critical roles in combating human trafficking, as they often Organized retail crime (ORC) refers to professional shoplifting, have significant amounts of cargo theft, retail crime rings, and data that can be used in an ORC criminal case. For example, a other organized crime occurring retail establishment involved in in retail environments. Make no an ORC investigation can utilize mistake—these are not petty data and run it against its POS thieves stealing from a local store. These are career criminals systems, ORC lists, and CCTV records. Using this multifaceted who frequently move in highly approach is how retailers can organized groups from store to work to defeat organized store, city to city, and state to criminals in what is now one of state. The complexity of their the most lucrative “business” “business model” only adds to the many obstacles retailers face operations in the world. According to data from the when combating ORC. Department of Homeland Although retailers can play Security (DHS), it is estimated a significant role in combating that the average price of a sex human trafficking, there are ad is sixty dollars. Multiply this several challenges they face, such as sex traffickers purchasing by the 1.04 million sex ads that currently utilize retail gift cards and utilizing retail brand gift as forms of payment, and you cards to fuel the underground are looking at over sixty million sex trade, identifying traveling annual dollars in potential laundered gift card expenditures. Retailers play one of the most critical roles DHS also listed five of the largest retailers, whose names were in combating human trafficking, as they excluded from the report for often have significant amounts of data that the purpose of anonymity, in its can be used in an ORC criminal case. research. The list below outlines ccording to the Federal Human Trafficking Report, at its core, human trafficking is the act of exploiting—often dehumanizing—another person for financial gain or other benefit. The people who traffickers coerce and exploit are known as “victims” in the criminal justice system because they have been harmed during the commission of a crime. In laymen’s terms, “victims” refers to the many individuals who are no longer being trafficked and now identify as survivors. Of course, a single term can never adequately reflect or encompass the humanity and resilience of each person whose life has been impacted by the (often) devastating effects of human trafficking. Capturing an accurate global snapshot of human trafficking data is virtually impossible. Human trafficking is now an estimated $150 billion annual industry, with 32 million individuals enslaved in labor and sex trafficking worldwide. With millions out of work due to the
July–August 2021
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