Welcome to Los Angeles, a nice place to live.
That is unless you're a normal American who cares about theft and organized crime being king of the city. Then it's not so nice.
To demonstrate the depths of the crime problem in LA, check out this story about a warehouse filled with stolen goods.
Wal-Mart, Target, CVS, and Walgreens all sent their own investigators to figure out which products, of the $100,000+ bust, belong to which stores.
"This is random because it's all stolen products so you see everything from food products, household products, everything you can think of that's stolen," says Captain Calvin Mah from the LA County Sheriff's department.
What's even crazier is that Los Angeles has become such a hub for crime that thieves from across the southwest are using LA as a sort of distribution center for stolen products.
The sheriff's department got information from investigators for CVS. The haul includes more than $100,000 in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics taken from stores in Arizona, Nevada and California.
It's like prohibition or something.
This is a level of organized crime we thought was gone from the world after the days of Al Capone. But it's still alive and well in LA.
People steal from stores, cargo trucks, trains, pretty much anywhere they can get their hands on the goods, then they ship them to holding centers like the one raided in LA, where criminal gangs work to remove security tags and other tags that would identify the products as stolen goods.
You've gotta wonder how many of these warehouses there are. A neighbor said he's hardly ever seen anyone going in and out of this warehouse, so you'd assume this is just one of many locations keeping the gangs busy.
Also, with between $100,000-200,000 worth of goods, we know there's MILLIONS of dollars worth of merchandise that hasn't been located. I doubt it's all been sold.
The Task Force has focused on identifying and arresting individuals who commit organized retail thefts, like "flash mob" and "smash and grab" crews. Since 2023 the Task Force has recovered approximately $11.5 million in stolen merchandise ...
And with this latest bust officials say they identified at least 10 people involved in the Southern California crime operation.
1 organized crime retail theft warehouse down, who knows how many to go.
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