Waterloo Regional Police launch retail crime safety blitz

Police are hoping a new blitz on retail crime will give business owners peace of mind. CTV’s Krista Simpson shows us where they will focus their efforts.

Waterloo Regional Police said they are launching a Retail Crime Safety Blitz this month in response to a rise in “significant retail thefts” across the region.

Police said officers will conduct targeted enforcement in areas identified through crime analysis and community input. They said the initiative will use “a range of policing strategies” to deter theft, including organized retail crime.

Between 2023 and 2024, Waterloo Region experienced a 36 per cent increase in retail thefts, with 4,276 incidents reported. Investigators said stolen items have included perfumes, power tools, cell phones, electronics and other high-value goods.

“These are people who are coming and targeting our community rather indiscriminately,” Waterloo Regional Police Service Const. Josh Shymko said. “They’re picking locations with intention, they’re showing up, they’re stealing high ticket items, and then they’re repurposing these value items and reselling them in uncontrolled markets, and outside of the scope that those products are intended to be sold in.”

Chief of Police Mark Crowell said the blitz will help prevent theft, hold offenders accountable and ensure the region remains a safe place to live, work and shop.

Police said residents can expect to see an increased presence at retail locations throughout the month, and that enforcement times and locations will vary.

“We’ve looked at the top ten locations for retail crime in all of our jurisdictions here in Waterloo Region and we’ve deployed officers accordingly,” Shymko said. “So it’ll be a combination again of uniform personnel, where you’ll see a very obvious overt presence of the uniform car, the uniform police officer at that location as a deterrence. And then what you may be unlikely to see but what is transpiring behind the scenes is the use of covert or plainclothes people across the region who will be conducting surveillance, status observations on people, and carrying out criminal information that we can process and effect arrests on when the timing is right.”

They said the service is working with the Retail Council of Canada’s National Retail Crime Taskforce and other partners to address retail and organized crime.

“It really is a borderless crime and it truly is transpiring all across the province and the country,” Shymko said. “It doesn’t seem to matter what the community is. If at points it’s not bolted down, then it’s finding its way into the hands of these people.”