USA-IT partners discuss how Organized Retail Crime and counterfeit goods impact consumers and put them at risk.

Rob Karr, president and CEO of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association:

“I think people have fallen into the habit of thinking of shoplifting as a victimless crime and it is not. It’s a high-profit center for these crimes … Somebody says, ‘Well, we should not worry that much about shoplifting.’ No, we should. Because it’s your friend and neighbor who is working at the store or managing the store, but it’s also your roads that are not getting repaired, your schools that are not getting funded properly, and when police cannot afford an extra officer on the day shift or the night shift, it impacts them.”

Jennifer Hanks, director of brand protection for the American Apparel and Footwear Association:

“Counterfeiters do not necessarily care to make the safest products possible. It’s about the money and the money laundering, the things they’re doing with those funds.”

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