The Franklin County Sheriff's Office announced at a press conference Thursday afternoon the launch of the new Fraud and Organized Retail Crime Engagement (FORCE) task force.
The task force was created after House Bill 366 enacted the Fight Organized Retail Crime and Empower Law Enforcement (FORCE) Act in April 2025 to combat organized retail theft and fraud.
Since March 2026, the FORCE Act now makes retail property theft of $7,500 or more a third-degree felony and allows for theft charges across jurisdictions to be combined.
Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin said the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants estimates organized retail theft and fraud costs Ohio businesses $2 to 3$ billion annually.
“This results in higher consumer prices and potentially unsafe shopping conditions in our local stores,” Baldwin said. “Our goal is to make sure everyone who shops in central Ohio feels safe. And we want to make sure our retail is no longer our victims of people selling thousands and thousands of dollars for the merchandise in their stores.”
The FORCE team is led by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and is made up by the Delaware County Sheriff's Office, Clinton Township Police Department, Grandview Heights Division of Police, Westerville Police Department, Homeland Security and Columbus Division of Police.
Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson explained organized retail is much more complex than a teenager who steals a pair of jeans from a store.
“It's much more, obviously by the name, organized. You have these groups that are working together and actually targeting, a lot of times high-end items, targeting specific items,” said Wilson. “They are going out, really engaging in a pattern of conduct, looking at stealing certain things and then taking those things back and reselling them a lot of times.”
Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Shayla Favor said before the FORCE Act, cases of organized retail thieves who stole from stores in Columbus then Westerville would be prosecuted separately.
“FORCE now closes that gap. By coordinating investigations across jurisdictions, we can connect an offender's conduct across cities and counties into one single case, giving us the resources to confront organized theft rings operating at malls and businesses all across central Ohio,” Favor said.
Since taking effect, Franklin County Detective Sergeant Caleb Loposser said the team has seized $150,000 in stolen merchandise, secured nine indictments across Franklin and Delaware counties and have 14 more open investigations.
“For too long, crimes in the retail community have been under investigated. We’ve been sidelined by jurisdictional boundaries. Thanks to their leadership and the agencies on stage with us today, we're going to make a true impact on legitimate commerce here in central Ohio,” Loposser said.
