Illegal Aliens Helping Fuel Explosive Growth In Transnational Retail Theft Rings

  M.D. Kittle

In May, IMC Logistics’ Memphis terminal was stormed by a pack of thieves arriving in seven vehicles. The criminals cut the front gates and drove straight to a specific area of the terminal.

“They were interrupted by our security team, but not before they had stolen $25,000 worth of merchandise in just three minutes,” Donna Lemm, chief strategy officer for the Tennessee-based drayage company, told the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week.

The hit was no petty theft, and the criminals weren’t your run-of-the-mill thieves. A wave of smash-and-grab retail robberies has swept the country in recent years. In many cases, the thieves are employees of some of the world’s most nefarious criminal enterprises — including cartels, terrorists organizations, and traffickers. And these transnational criminal outfits are using their pilfering proceeds to fund their network of illicit activities.

“One Homeland Security Investigations operation, called King of Thieves, uncovered an organized retail crime ring which had sent millions of dollars in criminal proceeds overseas.  That same group financed coyote fees for deported individuals to return to the United States,” Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, Judiciary chairman, said in his opening statements at Tuesday’s hearing on a bill aimed at coordinating law enforcement efforts to take on the transnational theft rings.

‘Big Business, Big Money’

Retail theft prevention experts testified at the hearing, titled, “Beyond the Smash and Grab: Criminal Networks and Organized Theft,” each with disturbing accounts of the impacts of the multi-billion dollar crime epidemic. And, yes, the retail theft rings have been supported in no small part by some of the millions of illegal immigrants that poured into the country thanks to Biden administration’s open border policies.

“A few years ago, cargo theft was barely on my company’s radar,” Lemm told the committee. She said in 2021, IMC Logistics recorded five cargo thefts. In 2024, the transportation company reported 876 cargo thefts — a 17,520 percent increase.

“The landscape has shifted, moving from lone criminals to organized theft groups, sabotaging our supply chain,” she said.

And the danger rises with the stakes. Lemm said IMC’s rail partners have shared drone footage of rail pirates cutting air brakes, a potentially deadly act, in stopping cargo trains. Thieves can clear out cargo containers in a matter of minutes, she said.

David Glawe, president and CEO of the National Insurance Crime Bureau based in Oak Brook, Illinois, said some estimates put cargo losses at $35 billion annually.

“It’s big business, big money, and big opportunity,” Glawe told the committee. “The impacts are felt at kitchen tables across the country through higher costs.”

He said Cargo theft losses increased by 27 percent in 2024 and are predicted to rise another 22 percent this year.

Homeland Security Investigations estimates the average American family will pay more than $500 in higher prices thanks to organized retail crime, Grassley said.

full story at https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/17/illegal-aliens-helping-fuel-explosive-growth-in-transnational-retail-theft-rings/