Friday, April 06, 2007

Retailers and the FBI band together to fight organized crime

Communication is probably the most effective tool in fighting financial crimes, especially those of the organized sort. Financial crooks (scam artists) thrive on a lack of communication and knowledge.

The retail industry realizes this and in partnership with the FBI is launching a secure tool that businesses and law enforcement can use to communicate criminal activity with each other. A simple, but powerful principle.

Here is the information on this new tool from the NRF site:
In response to an alarming rise in organized retail crime, the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association, in collaboration with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, have teamed up to launch the Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Network (LERPnet), a secure national database that will allow retailers to share information through its unique web-based design. With LERPnet, retailers and law enforcement will be able to fight back against illegal activity including organized retail crime, burglaries, robberies, counterfeiting, and online auction fraud. The database will launch on April 9, 2007.

Full NRF press release, here.

More information on this tool can be seen by linking, here.

The Washington Post also did a good story covering this.

A lot of other industries and law enforcement agencies should follow this example. Developing better tools to communicate could help resolve the current epidemic, currently being seen in all types of financial crimes.

There is some evidence that the bad guys communicate with each other, regularly (carder forums). The good guys should do no less!

To close, Joe LaRocca, NRF vice president of loss prevention is saying:

“With this system, retailers are banding together with law enforcement to send a clear message to criminals: We will not tolerate your behavior and we will stop you.”

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