WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today co-hosted a press conference alongside the National Retail Federation and bipartisan Senate and House cosponsors pushing for passage of his legislation to fight organized retail crime. The Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, led by Grassley and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), would establish a coordinated multi-agency response and create new tools to tackle evolving trends in organized retail theft, which cost nationwide retailers an estimated $112.1 billion in 2022. Iowa business lost more than $1 billion in 2021 due to organized retail crime, and resulted in $68 million in lost tax revenue.
“This is something that for the state of Iowa is a $1 billion problem,” Grassley said at the press conference. “But you also have to recognize not just the theft, but the danger to the employees, the cost to the consumers and then the impact upon the individual retailers… This is a problem that we have to deal with, and it has to be dealt with in a comprehensive way. And that’s what our legislation is all about.”
Video of Grassley’s full remarks can be watched below and downloaded for broadcast HERE.
In his remarks, Grassley further laid out the vicious criminal cycle generated by organized retail theft, in which criminal organizations lead flash mobs and use the profits made from selling stolen goods to fuel drug trafficking and other illicit activities. Grassley is a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Co-Chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control.
Additional Senate cosponsors of the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act include Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). Companion legislation in the House of Representatives boasts more than 75 bipartisan cosponsors.
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