(Image courtesy of TVW)
The new task force organized by A.G. Bob Ferguson includes federal prosecutors, law enforcement and retail groups, who say this is a nearly $70-billion problem each year nationwide – nearly $3-billion in Washington last year alone. Ferguson says it affects all of us with higher prices and diminished safety, like parents who buy one of thieves’ most common targets – baby formula – and unknowingly put their babies at risk “if the thieves, for example, fail to store the product at the appropriate temperatures, or if the thieves manipulated the packaging, such as changing the expiration date, and that’s just one example,” Ferguson says.
Washington Retail Association president, Renee Sunde, says these products are sold, often in online black markets for quick cash. “Often used to fund even much more egregious criminal activity,” Sunde says, “that may include human trafficking, weapons sales, drug trafficking and terrorism.”
The group is confident that by working together they’ll have success in battling this problem like similar task forces in nine other states have seen. One of their targets is online marketplaces that allow stolen goods to be sold. The task force is already calling on the larger sites to follow eBay’s example and do their part to stop playing a part in the sales of stolen merchandise.
