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Eighteen people are now facing felony charges ranging from robbery and burglary to grand larceny for stealing from multiple retailers.
Incidents were captured on surveillance video.
"Shoplifting drives up prices, causes layoffs and store closures, and cost taxpayers millions of dollars so we here in Suffolk County are not going to sit back and allow it to happen," Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said.
"It's more so the organized retail crime part of it has really what's been increasing," said Nicolas Guttman, regional asset protection manager for The Home Depot.
It's not just happening at The Home Depot. Investigators say multiple retailers have been hit.
The suspects are accused of collectively committing a total of 80 larcenies for a total loss of over $110,000. "If it's popular to you, if it's something that you shop for, that's what people are going to steal because it's easy resale, whether it's on eBay, whether it's on Facebook Marketplace," Guttman said.
The arrests and investigations are all part of the DA's Retail Protection Partnership. The Home Depot says safety for employees is the top priority in situations like these. Employees are trained what to do and what not to do. "We're hands off for all of our employees and all of our stores, especially in this market, we have individuals that are trained to apprehend shoplifters," Guttman said. Officials say they're seeing less larcenies in the past three years.
The DA's office said in 2024, there were 6,041 larcenies. There were 5,774 in 2025 and so far this year, there have been 1,950.
"We're addressing the situation," Tierney said. "We're having a result and we're going to continue to go at it."


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