A Tampa Bay area pastor is charged with running what Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody described as a multimillion-dollar retail theft operation.
Robert Dell of Pinellas County, along with four other associates, is charged with stealing merchandise worth more than $1.4 million from Home Depot stores in several counties along the west coast of Florida and selling the items online.
According to a press release from Attorney General Moody’s office, Dell, who also founded a halfway house for people recovering from drug addiction, used his positions of power to “manipulate other vulnerable people to participate in the criminal scheme.”
“We will not tolerate organized retail theft in Florida and my office will continue to combat these criminal organizations,” Moody said in a press release.
The operation was the latest arrest after Moody launched FORCE, the Florida Organized Retail Crime Exchange, in late 2021.
FORCE is a tool for law enforcement to track shoplifting cases in multiple jurisdiction that might be tied to organized crime.
At a press conference announcing the program Moody said FORCE “allows us to track what seem like single incidents of theft, and allow us to put together the pieces to identify the larger scale, criminal organizations that are going into our stores and stealing large amounts of merchandise.”
The National Retail Federation says stolen goods costs businesses $94.5 billion in 2021.
