Crime & Safety

Bottling Up Baby Formula Thefts Keeps Police Busy

Shoplifters all around Milwaukee — and the country — are pushing the limits to get their hands on expensive canisters that are often being resold by other business owners.

Thefts of baby formula have been occurring, well, as long as baby formula has been sold in stores.

But a rash of recent thefts in Brookfield, other Milwaukee suburbs and even across the country appear to have escalated in terms of the boldness and brazenness — or maybe desperation — of the offenders.

The most recent large-scale bust happened in April when police say Ebony Sims, 26, and Johnetta Webb, 23, both from Milwaukee, loaded 69 cans of formula into plastic totes they had grabbed off the shelves at Walmart in Greenfield and waltzed out of the store.

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Two days later, before ditching the cans when alerted by an accomplice that police were outside waiting for them.

“I think they’d steal as much as they can, there’s just no way to carry it,” Greenfield Det. Sgt. Ray Radakovich said.

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Thefts all over area, country

In Greenfield alone, police investigated 11 baby formula thefts totaling nearly 250 canisters worth more than $4,500 in the first four months of 2013. The two cases involving Sims and Webb, who have been charged with misdemeanor retail theft, were the largest.

Over the last several months. Wauwatosa and Brookfield, two of Milwaukee's largest suburbs, also have been hit particularly hard. In November, two Milwaukee sisters, 12 and 14 years old, pushed out a cart with $500 in formula and diapers out Pick ‘n Save’s doors in Wauwatosa.

Two cases in Brookfield even led to armed robbery charges. Police say a man swung a bag with seven 35-ounce cans of formula at a Pick ‘n Save employee who tried to stop him. A few months earlier, also at Pick ‘n Save, a woman was arrested after reportedly yelling “don’t make me pull out this gun” when an employee tried to stop her from stealing.

A Milwaukee man was charged last month with four counts of misdemeanor retail theft for stealing more than 50 cans over two days from a Pick 'n Save in Menomonee Falls, and in Oak Creek, police were on the lookout for a pair of men who stole $525 in formula on three different trips to Target in December.

Similar thefts are happening across the country. In recent weeks, three individuals took 38 cans of formula from Target and Walmart stores in Salem, NH. Last month, a couple was caught on video taking 26 cans – or $500 worth – of Emfamil from a Walmart in Hartland, MI. And in Shorewood, IL, a woman was charged with stealing nearly a dozen canisters.

Just this week, authorities near Portland shut down a baby formula theft ring that had resulted in the theft of nearly $12,000 in formula. That pales in comparison to a theft ring that reportedly stole $2.5 million in baby formula from stores in California and Oregon until getting busted by police in December 2010.

Why baby formula?

A multitude of reasons has put baby formula near the top of shoplifters wish-list, but tops among them, according to Radakovich, is its resale value. A typical canister of baby formula sells for $15 to $30. Criminals take it off store shelves and sell it to unscrupulous small-store owners in large cities for pennies on the dollar.

Those store owners then “sell it for sometimes even more extreme rates than Walmart,” Radakovich said.

Baby formula is also used to cut illicit drugs such as cocaine, or used to stretch out the supply of such drugs, though Radakovich believes thefts related to those uses are declining.

How about the young mothers or fathers who just can’t afford to feed their infants?

“You can’t rule that out. … But I don’t think we’ve ever caught anyone who’s stolen cans of baby formula for its legitimate use,” Radakovich said.

Can it be stopped?

No store is immune to the thefts. Major retailers like Walmart, Kmart and Target are usual targets, as are grocery and drug stores like Pick ‘n Save and Walgreens. Some stores have better in-house loss prevention techniques than others: better video surveillance systems, trained security professionals or undercover employees throughout the store.

Retailers could prevent even more thefts by focusing on what’s trending among shoplifters and putting more loss-prevention emphasis on those items, Radakovich said.

But even that might not be a cure-all for crews that have developed a level of sophistication that keeps them from getting caught.

“The couple crews we’ve seen doing this are more organized,” Radakovich said. “The ones that come in and take 45 cans will pack them in totes, and they have a system of lookouts in the parking lot. It’s not like The Wire on television, but they’ll have someone sitting outside with a phone. They’ll text or call, ‘Hey, the cops just pulled up.’”

Greenfield police have asked loss prevention employees to call them when they see suspicious activity occurring and not wait until the offender is already out of the door with the goods. The thieves, however, have combated that through their lookout system — those outside alert those inside that police have arrived and they ditch the items.

“If anything, we’ve prevented the theft,” Radakovich said.

Radakovich believes at some point the black market will become saturated with all the baby formula it can handle and criminals will simply move on to the next item.

“For a while, it was toothpaste and other toiletries,” he said. “Right now, it’s baby formula. Next year, it could be underarm deodorant. Whatever the less-reputable, mom-and-pop stores are buying, that’s what they’ll steal to resell.”


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