COPS are hunting for a suspected thief after he allegedly stole almost $6,000 worth of goods from Home Depot.
As retail theft rates increase, Home Depot is one of many retailers taking the brunt.
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The alleged thief made a $5,889.32 purchase at a Home Depot in Vineland, New Jersey on May 22, according to state police.
Authorities say the man used someone else’s identity and credit card information for the purchase.
He was pictured wearing a long-sleeve shirt that said Fintech Performance – Fishing Division on it.
The man was seen leaving the store in a U-Haul cargo van, local radio station WPUR reports.
Police are hoping to get tips on the man as he is wanted for identity theft and credit card theft.
It comes after company bosses warned about the epidemic of shoplifting.
In May, Home Depot’s CFO Richard McPhail spoke out about the prevalent issue of retail theft.
McPhail, said: “The country has a retail theft problem,” on a call with CNBC.
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“We’re confident in our ability to mitigate and blunt that pressure, but that pressure certainly exists out there.”
Home Depot’s vice president of asset protection, Scott Glenn, told CNBC in March that crime was spiking into the double digits.
“I can tell you that in our world, we know that crime is increasing. We see it every day in our stores,” he said.
“Our internal information shows us that that’s on a year-over-year basis, growing at double-digit rates.”
The National Retail Federation found that organized retail crime is the main reason for shrinkage in stores.
Shrink is a term used to describe when a retailer has fewer products than what is recorded in the books.
Retailers lost $94.5billion in 2021 from shrink, which is an increase of over $4billion from the year before, according to an NRF 2022 survey.
Additionally, the survey reports a 26.5 percent increase in organized retail crime in 2021.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/8457890/home-depot-fishing-thief-wanted/