After a Congressional hearing in December brought prominent retail players like Target and American Eagle to Washington, D.C. to discuss the escalating impacts of organized retail crime, legislation aimed at coordinating nationwide efforts to stop criminals has passed in the House Judiciary Committee.
During a markup session Tuesday, the Committee voted in favor of the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025 (CORCA), which would mandate the formation of an Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which would streamline the efforts of state and federal law enforcement groups along with and private retail loss prevention personnel.
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“These crimes target everything from bars of soap to entire vans, trucks, train cars, shipping containers and beyond, for illegal theft and resale around the world. What may look like an isolated criminal act is far too often one spoke in a very well-oiled wheel. These criminals are members of larger networks, many of which include the more well-known criminal activities such as drug trafficking, gang crime, violent crime, and, of course, fraud,” said Rep. Brad Knott (R-N.C.).
The bill also addresses the dissemination of stolen goods for profit. “Typically, once the underlying theft has occurred, the stolen goods invariably are disassembled or distributed into the broader black market, often crossing state lines and even leaving the country again,” Knott added. “Everything that is for sale, transported or imported into the United States is in play for this set of crimes.”
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) underscored that organized retail crime has become “increasingly sophisticated, involving multi-state criminal networks that target retail stores, warehouses, supply chains.”
“And right now, these criminal organizations coordinate across jurisdictions. They move stolen goods through complex logistics networks. They sell them online. They’ve been faster than law enforcement agencies, and they’ve been able to share information, and it’s happening in communities like mine in South Florida,” he said. “Let’s be clear what this bill does and does not do. This legislation is not about everyday shoplifting; we’re talking about networks that steal at scale, sometimes entire truckloads of goods and resell them through sophisticated channels before law enforcement agencies even realize they’re connected.”
That’s because criminal networks are currently exploiting “a critical gap” in law enforcement’s abilities and authority, according to Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.). “This legislation would fill this gap in several ways,” she said, including through the creation of a centralized coordination body that would ensure federal, state and local law enforcement are utilizing the same playbook to investigate and prosecute crimes and allow them to share intelligence about boosters, fences and organizers, all of whom play a role in the stealing and sale of stolen property. The Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center would include other government agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and the U.S. Postal Service.
“Second, it would strengthen the tools prosecutors need to go after those individuals who routinely are stealing these goods and merchandise, those who knowingly are trafficked in stolen goods, and those at the top of these criminal organizations plan direct and profit the most from these crimes,” she said.
The National Retail Federation, which estimates that retail larceny incidents increased 93 percent between 2019 and 2023 (including a nearly 90 percent increase in dollar losses), wrote an open letter praising the Committee for taking up the legislation in its markup session.
“NRF strongly supports H.R. 2853 and urges the committee to swiftly support it and for Congress to pass it into law. Organized retail crime continues to evolve beyond being the work of isolated criminal activity. It is driven by sophisticated and organized criminal networks operating across local, state and national boundaries,” wrote NRF executive vice president of government relations David French.
According to the retail association, retailers have seen a significant uptick in violence tied to organized retail crime, which has had negative effects on staffing. Organized events like smash-and-grabs and flash mobs have accelerated since the pandemic, introducing the threat of massive property damage, and gift card fraud is also on the rise.
French said CORCA expands federal enforcement of criminal offences related to organized retail crime that will draw a distinction between petty theft or shoplifting and more established retail crime rings with advanced protocols for stealing and selling. “These provisions are essential to ensuring law enforcement has the authority to pursue these criminal enterprises wherever they operate, protecting retail employees and consumers, and safeguarding community businesses,” he wrote.
The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) also commended the Committee for advancing the legislation, which senior director of government affairs Sarah Gilmore characterized as “a critical step toward protecting retail workers, supply chains, and communities from the ongoing threat of organized retail crime.”
“American consumers and businesses deserve to be protected from criminal networks engaged in gift card fraud, cargo theft and increasingly violent in-store ORC incidents. CORCA provides the tools necessary for coordinated action, ensuring that law enforcement and industry partners can stay ahead of these evolving threats,” she said.
Retail groups aren’t the only ones urging the bill’s swift passage. With organized retail crime increasingly impacting other rungs in the consumer goods supply chain, like transportation providers, the Association of American Railroads said it’s critical that federal law address the issue of cargo theft.
Following CORCA’s passage in Committee on Tuesday, the group’s president and CEO, Ian Jefferies, applauded lawmakers and called the action “a critical step toward confronting the organized theft networks that are increasingly targeting freight railroads, truckers, retailers, and workers across the nation.”
These are “challenges that railroads have invested heavily to address but cannot solve alone without a strong federal response,” he added.
Now that CORCA has been voted out of the Committee, it will be scheduled for debate and possible amendments on the House floor. After it’s voted on by the full House of Representatives, it will move to the Senate for an analogous process before being sent to the president’s desk for a signature.
California, which invested a record-setting $267 million in developing a statewide response to the threat of organized retail crime in 2023, announced Tuesday that such investigations have increased by 3,000 percent between 2019, when the state’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force (ORCTF) was formed, and 2025.
During 2025 alone, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) initiated 734 investigations and made 1,208 arrests for organized retail crime, recovering 272,000 stolen items worth nearly $17 million, according to Governor Gavin Newsom’s office.
Highlighting a recent notable case, the governor’s office pointed to the arrest last month of more than a dozen individuals connected to a major fencing operation wherein stolen retail products were being sold at flea markets across Northern California. CHP, which leads the statewide ORCTF, worked with other agencies and law enforcement to serve warrants at multiple locations and recover $800,000 in stolen merchandise.
“Our organized retail crime enforcement efforts are delivering real results—dismantling organized retail theft networks, recovering tens of millions of dollars in stolen goods, and making thousands of arrests tied to sophisticated criminal rings operating across our state,” Newsom said. “These operations continue to send a clear message: California will not tolerate organized crime that preys on working families, small businesses, and local communities.”
