What is Organized Crime?

What is The Impact of Organized Crime?

The first question is, what is organized crime?

Simply, they are criminal activities that have been planned and controlled by expert groups who operate on a large scale, most commonly linked to theft.

Whether it be retail theft or data theft, organized crime has become increasingly common over the years as thieves work together to gain further rewards than that, that can be gained alone.

Planning ahead allows criminals to assess location’s risks and create a more precise plan that aims to mitigate those risks for those involved in order to avoid capture.

Understanding the Impact of Organized Crime

The impact of organized crime will vary from one industry to the next as the rewards that can be gained from each industry will differ, meaning the consequences will also.

However, generally there are 5 main side effects to such type of crime:

Financial Loss

The most common repercussion to organized crime is the heavy financial implications that can be caused by it.

Whether that be the loss of goods, money, or data, all come with a price that you’ll be responsible to recover from.

Due to organized crime often involving multiple individuals, all of which will have experience in crime, the likelihood of success is higher than that of other crime types. This also leads to larger impacts on you as a business.

Damaged Reputation

Yes, organized crime may not directly be your fault, but this doesn’t stop it from impacting your business’ reputation.

Large incidents or repeated attacks can lead to distrust, fear, and doubt from the local community and visitors, deterring them from providing their custom to your business.

In particular instances of data theft, it only takes one incident to completely lose the reputation you have as a business, potentially causing closures. Therefore, for industries responsible for sensitive data, the need to prevent organized crime is extremely important.

Safety Concerns

Any crimes involving a large number of individuals will appear intimidating and create safety concerns if seen, however, suspicious behaviour and any incidents can create this issue also.

Tactics such as smash-and-grabs have been increasingly common in the space of organized retail crime, with thieves showing little to no care of customers present. 

This can create safety hazards for any individuals present at incidents like this as criminals will go to extreme levels for financial gain.

But, it doesn’t stop there. Any suspicious activity prior to this could have similar impacts of causing fear amongst any customers or the local community.

High Staff Turnover

For sectors such as retail, construction, and property management where staff are client facing, their safety is important and organized crime will put this at risk.

If staff are present during an incident, this can lead to a sense of fear regarding their safety and lead them to feel a lack of care or responsibility from you as an employer. 

In any instance of such crime, staff may choose to leave your business at a higher rate than expected, creating a high turnover and increasing onboarding costs for your business.

Increased Violence and Conflicts

With organized crime comes knowledge, planning, and experience. 

As a group, many will be aware of the risks and dangers, ensuring they have a way to respond to situations where they could be compromised during their plan.

This could involve physical aggression, weapons, and other violent techniques against any individuals they may be in contact with.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of organized crime the chance of this increases, leading to injuries and even death in the worst instance.

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5 Industries at High Risk to Organized Crime

Organized crime can happen to any industry, any business, at any time, however, some industries are more likely to be impacted by such crime due to the lucrative profits or benefits they bring to criminals. 

We’ve listed 5 industries that should be aware of organized crime and why they are targeted by criminal groups:

Construction Jobsites

There are several reasons construction jobsites are targeted for organized crime but the main reason is due to their often open access, as well as their high-value materials, equipment, and machinery.

Due to the temporary measures of construction, many companies will avoid utilizing security or use a cheaper option which may not be that successful at protecting your jobsite. 

This leaves them at high-risk as to organized crime gangs as they have prior knowledge and expertise in this type of activity and understand what targets are easier than others.

The common type of organized crime to occur at construction jobsites is large-scale theft as the profits are lucrative for criminals and can be easily sold on to scrap yards or via illegal channels quickly because the items are in high-demand.

Retail

Retail provides multiple options for organized crime, with various goods available and on display to criminals, they make the perfect target for crimes such as retail theft.

Due to the variation of products in retail, organized crime gangs could target smaller, easier to steal items like alcohol or larger, higher-value products such as technology. 

The benefit for them is with smaller goods, gangs can operate over longer periods of time with a smaller chance of being caught, meaning profit can quickly increase without having to put themselves at too much risk.

For some groups, they will take orders from businesses and individuals as to what they require. The organized crime gang will then scope out the retail store and then return to the store to carry out the crime.

Find Out How to Protect Your Business Against Retail Theft

Healthcare

Healthcare facilities including hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics can be exploited in various ways by organized crime groups.

With complex billing systems, there are various fraudulent activities like prescription drug diversion, billing scams, and corrupt contracting that can take place through the manipulation of such a system.

Providing significant profit, with minimal risk, one organized crime incident could create an extremely healthy profit for those involved. 

Additionally, other crimes surrounding patient fraud and internal corruption may also be used by gangs in order to gain financial benefit from these large-scale healthcare complexes.

Transportation

You may be thinking, why would organized crime groups target moving vehicles? Well, they are easier to intercept than you think and if planned well, they can be stopped in remote locations where there are little to no witnesses.

Also, there are endless targets with this type of crime as the transportation of goods happens every single day and are likely to follow similar routes if linked to one specific company or area.

Organized crime groups can monitor their movements and anticipate the best time to intercept the vehicle. This allows crime such as cargo theft to be carried out and thieves can sell the goods for their financial gain. 

Due to driver shortages too, staff turnover is often higher, so some groups may look to take advantage of this and pose as an employee without being recognized. 

Vacant Properties

Vacant properties are on the rise for some States, and unfortunately this increases the chance of criminal activity, particularly for residential buildings where there are no occupants at all.

Often based in secluded areas where there is little surveillance, it makes it simple for organized crime groups to assess the property for any valuable items or space to utilize themselves, with little risk of facing any disruption.

Groups may use vacant properties for drug storage, weapons, illegal gambling operations, and other criminal ventures as the likelihood of being caught is heavily reduced compared to other property types.

Additionally, if high-value items or metal can be found in the property, organized crime groups may target vacant properties for theft.

How to Prevent Organized Crime From Happening to you

In most instances, crime starts outside, quite often in your parking lot. 

Fitting cameras internally into your store, building, or hospital is beneficial to protect against many crimes, however, as organized crime increases, so does the negative impact, making it vital to prevent it from happening to you.

That’s why it’s time to enhance your security and you may be surprised to know you can utilize your parking lot to do this.

The LotGuard PRO Solar Surveillance Trailer is designed specifically to provide both criminal deterrence and prevention in one, without the need for any power input or internet connectivity from you.

Only taking up one parking space, it can slot into your parking lot without creating any intimidation to residents, employees, or visitors. 

To prevent organized crime, you have to be proactive and reactive in your security approach. Our products use visual and audio deterrence including live voice-down audio message feature, as well as remote monitoring services that help to deter, detect, and deal with active crime.

Essentially, our response is to prevent crime at the point it enters your parking lot, so that you avoid the repercussions of any damage, theft, or exploitation even entering your business.

Speak with a LotGuard expert today to find out how we can support your business against organized crime and other security risks!