PHOENIX — Organized retail theft is an ongoing problem across Maricopa County, and now prosecutors say one man’s prison sentence is an example of a broader crackdown on these crimes.
Connor Burgess was sentenced to six years in prison this week for what investigators call brazen, calculated theft. Burgess stole $26,000 worth of golf clubs and sporting goods then resold them online, according to police. He pled guilty to three felony counts of organized retail theft.
“We're not talking about shoplifting here,” Rachel Mitchell, Maricopa County Attorney told ABC15. “Organized retail theft is very, very different. What it does is it targets items that are highly resalable.”
Mitchell says the Burgess case is far from isolated, with hundreds of cases submitted to her office each year. There were 900 investigations were submitted in 2024 alone, the highest number on recent record, and this year to date the have been 233 cases.
Organized retail theft cases submitted to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office:
- 2026: 233
- 2025: 738
- 2024: 900
- 2023: 616
- 2022: 513
- 2021: 536
“One of the recent trends that we're seeing is the theft of trading cards,” Mitchell said. “Skip scanning, where somebody will appear to be scanning an item, but they'll be scanning an item of a lesser cost. Another trend we're seeing is people using either their kids or baby strollers without children to conceal the merchandise or they're having the kids take the merchandise themselves.”
Mitchell says these thefts often fund larger and more dangerous criminal operations.
“It is organized also in the sense that the money that's being raised through this process is going to fund other criminal activities, such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, those types of things,” she said.
Every stolen item also has a cost that gets passed along.
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“Ultimately, the business has to absorb those losses, but they will pass those on to consumers, and that can be through using anti-theft devices, which cost money,” Mitchell said. “When those items walk out the door unpaid for, those get passed on to consumers as well, so you have a huge increase in prices in really essentials.”
Arizona, she says, is not looking the other way. Mitchell encourages retailers to report these crimes to police, saying the County Attorney’s Office is collaborating with police departments.
“We will prosecute these cases,” Mitchell said. “This is not some other state that is not taking these cases seriously, or setting a high dollar amount before we'll look at it.”
Ismail Pellumbi, who owns Milk and Honey Market downtown, says he doesn’t need statistics to understand the problem: his own cameras have captured.
“A lot of businesses, especially in downtown areas, they go through tough times, you know, and that adds up into the cost of the business,” Pellumbi said.
He says those who intend to steal from his convenience store typically don’t target essentials, but instead go for high-cost items, like alcohol.
To deter it, the store has cameras, monitors, and a well-lit space, and it keeps high-value items close to staff.
“It's not fair to the regular people that come every day to pay for whatever they buy,” Pellumbi said. “So we try to prevent that. We are 100 percent behind every law enforcement or county attorneys, you know, if they want to crack on these matters.”
