Ninety-five per cent of retailers said that organized crime was the biggest threat to their business, according to a study by Retail Council of Canada.

Retail businesses lost $9.2 billion in 2023 due to organized crime, nearly doubling since 2018.

“In Canada, for the last three, four years, we’ve seen a drastic increase in retail crime,” said Rui Rodrigues, executive advisor of Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC), which partnered with RCC to conduct the survey of over 20,000 retail businesses across Canada.

Roger Azuelos, owner of Emmanuel Men’s Clothing, lost nearly $5,000 when his store was the target of a three person theft ring.

“By the time I went to see the two other guys in the other part of the store, I came back and I saw one guy touching the machine, the credit card machi

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