Organized Retail Crime: A Firsthand Perspective
Bryan Tomey’s firsthand account of organized retail crime, its community impacts, and the prevention focus behind Second Look Retail Solutions.
AI presenter · Second Look ORC account
SECOND LOOK / ORC AWARENESS
Videos
INDIANA FOCUSED · FIRSTHAND INFORMED
Indiana ORC consulting.
Practical prevention training.
Organized retail crime consulting and Indianapolis retail theft prevention training informed by firsthand experience—helping retailers, associations and law enforcement recognize vulnerabilities and improve prevention.
HBA & OTC expertise / Retail risk awareness / Safer response
CONSULTING & TRAINING FORIndiana retailersRetail associationsORC associationsLaw enforcement
01 / CONSULTING & TRAINING FOR YOUR ROLE
Retail theft prevention training
for your team.
Explore Indiana organized retail crime training and ORC consulting for retailers, associations and law enforcement audiences.
FOR STORE TEAMS & LOSS PREVENTION
Prevention for everyday retail operations.
Build a shared understanding of organized theft, with practical attention to health and beauty aisles and over-the-counter products.
- Recognize repeat loss patterns and report observable facts.
- Review HBA/OTC merchandising, inventory checks and product integrity.
- Practice safe escalation, documentation and employee response.
01 / STAFF TRAINING
Prepare your team.
A 60-minute session on theft patterns, safe observation, factual documentation and when to involve a manager.
02 / STORE WALKTHROUGH
Spot preventable gaps.
Review product placement, visibility, access to high-risk HBA/OTC items and routine controls, followed by a short report with practical recommendations.
03 / ORC BRIEFING
Hear the firsthand perspective.
A presentation for retail groups or law enforcement on historical organized resale practices and prevention lessons drawn from Bryan’s experience.
04 / TRAINING MATERIALS
Keep the guidance useful.
Checklists and short guides for staff onboarding, incident notes and safe internal escalation.
SEE THE WORK
Preview the training
and the report.
These one-page examples show what a staff session covers and how a store walkthrough report presents observations and practical recommendations.
60-MINUTE STAFF SESSION
Sample training outline
See the timed agenda, a practice scenario, and the safety and documentation topics covered with a store team.
View sample outline PDFSTORE WALKTHROUGH
Sample assessment report
See how a short report separates visible store conditions from suggested actions. The example is fictional and clearly marked as such.
View sample report PDFTHE VOLUME BEHIND THE RISK
Many items.
One category under pressure.
Repeated removal of small, high-demand products can create a substantial inventory problem across stores. These founder-supplied photos show the volume and variety of HBA and OTC merchandise that prevention teams may need to account for.
Photos supplied by Bryan Tomey. They illustrate merchandise volume; the images alone do not verify theft, an ORC incident, product ownership, or a dollar loss.
SPECIALIZED CONSULTING & TRAINING
HBA & OTC
loss prevention
consulting.
HBA/OTC loss prevention consulting and training connect Bryan’s category experience with the daily realities of retail teams.
01 Product & inventory awareness
Explore category-level loss patterns, recurring discrepancies, packaging integrity and reliable inventory records. Prioritize store-specific evidence over assumptions about shoppers.
02 Resale & fencing awareness
Understand the distinction between theft for personal use and theft connected to resale. Discuss the role of intermediaries and why events in different locations may need coordinated review.
03 Safer, more useful reporting
Practice factual incident notes, internal escalation and authorized information sharing. Follow employer policy, avoid confrontation and keep staff and customer safety first.
IN DEVELOPMENT / INDIANAPOLIS-AREA PILOT
Introducing Second Look Connect
A free information-sharing app planned for Indianapolis-area retailers and law enforcement
Second Look Retail Solutions LLC is developing Second Look Connect, a user-friendly, mobile-friendly app designed to help approved retailers and participating law enforcement agencies share information about reported organized retail crime and store theft incidents affecting the Indianapolis area.
The planned pilot will cover Marion, Hamilton, Johnson, and Hendricks counties. Retailers will be able to quickly report observed incidents, add relevant descriptions and vehicle information, and share timely alerts with approved participants in the area.
Second Look Connect is planned as a free service for participating retailers and law enforcement. Its streamlined reporting process is being designed around busy store managers and officers, with Quick alert reporting followed by optional incident details.
We are pursuing integration with Flock Safety to support authorized law enforcement workflows. Any integration will depend on Flock’s approval, participating agency authorization, available technical access, and applicable requirements. Police information and ALPR access will remain under agency control.
Currently in development: The prototype uses fictional incidents. Live alerts, verified accounts, and Flock integration are not yet active. A launch date has not been announced.
Second Look Connect is intended to support information sharing. It does not replace 911, agency dispatch, or official police reports. Retailer reports will not automatically create vehicle hotlist entries or confirm that officers have been dispatched.
Interested in the Indianapolis-area pilot? Contact bryan@secondlookorc.com.
02 / ABOUT US
A past understood.
A purpose changed.
Bryan Tomey Founder · Indianapolis, Indiana
“I spent more than 20 years involved in organized retail theft and was federally prosecuted in 2017. I now use that firsthand experience to help retailers recognize vulnerabilities and improve prevention. My work is limited to training and consulting.”
Turning firsthand experience into an asset for companies and law enforcement working to combat organized retail crime.
Bryan brings 22 years of past organized retail crime participation, with a particular focus on health and beauty aids (HBA) and over-the-counter (OTC) products. He describes his former role as a high-level “Level 3” booster—a person who steals retail merchandise for resale.
His experience also includes locating high-level “Level 3” fences in New York, New Jersey, California and Florida. A fence buys or redistributes stolen goods. That history gives his consulting and training a former booster’s perspective on the relationship between retail theft and resale networks.
Over those years, Bryan witnessed firsthand the extensive growth of organized retail crime, along with the evolution of the prevention techniques and technology used to combat it. Those observations inform his consulting and training, bringing a former booster’s perspective to discussions about retail prevention practices and the challenges facing companies and law enforcement.
In 2017, Bryan faced federal prosecution for operating a multimillion-dollar organized retail crime operation. He shares this part of his history openly as context for the experience he brings to prevention consulting and training.
Today, Bryan has focused his energy on turning that experience and knowledge into a constructive asset for companies, retail and ORC associations, and law enforcement seeking assistance in combating ORC. Through Second Look Retail Solutions, he offers consulting and training to help teams understand risks, strengthen prevention practices and communicate more effectively—from the perspective of someone who formerly participated in boosting.
NEW YORKNEW JERSEYCALIFORNIAFLORIDA
Background, including the 2017 prosecution, is based on Bryan’s account. “Level 3” is his description of the roles, not a professional certification or a universal classification. Services do not include locating current fences, investigations or law-enforcement services.
03 / CONTEXT FOR PREVENTION
The numbers matter.
So does the context.
Capital One Shopping compiled a historical Indiana retail theft estimate. Separate national retailer survey findings describe shoplifting and ORC trends. The measures cover different places, years and types of loss.
INDIANA · 2022 ESTIMATE
$1.517BEstimated retail theft revenue loss
Capital One Shopping estimates Indiana retailers lost $1.517 billion in revenue to theft in 2022. Its retail theft definition excludes ORC.
Source & limitations [1] ↗U.S. RETAILER SURVEY · 2025 VS. 2024
−12.4%Average shoplifting incidents
Decrease experienced by respondents to NRF’s 2026 retail theft and violence survey.
Source & limitations [2] ↗U.S. RETAILER SURVEY · 2026 REPORT
40%Reported more ORC-related events
Share of surveyed retailers reporting an increase in ORC-related events. This is not a 40% rise in the number of events.
Source & limitations [2] ↗ADDITIONAL NATIONAL CONTEXT · 2023–2024
52% increase in ORC incidents among retailers able to track ORC, according to Capital One Shopping’s compilation. Its ORC product table also names cosmetics, fragrances and over-the-counter medications among commonly stolen items. These are national observations, not Indiana-specific counts or a measure of HBA/OTC loss share. Source & limitations [3] ↗
Read the sources & what these figures do—and don’t—show
[1] Indiana: Capital One Shopping, Shoplifting Statistics, Indiana section. Its state-by-state compilation estimates $1.517 billion in Indiana retail revenue lost to theft in 2022. The page defines external retail theft as excluding theft due to organized crime. It does not show a state-specific calculation for this figure. This historical estimate is not a current loss figure or an ORC or HBA/OTC category total.
[2] United States: National Retail Federation, The Impact of Theft & Violence 2026 findings, July 30, 2026. The survey was completed by 66 retail companies representing 143 brands. The 12.4% figure compares their average shoplifting incidents in 2025 with 2024; 40% is the share reporting an increase in ORC-related events. Neither figure is an Indiana statewide crime-report count.
[3] Additional national context: Capital One Shopping, Retail Theft (Shoplifting) Statistics, updated August 28, 2026. Its ORC section reports a 52% increase in incidents from 2023 to 2024 among retailers able to track ORC; its product table lists selected categories and examples. The article compiles other sources without a calculation for this subgroup on the page. This does not measure Indiana ORC trends or the portion of losses attributable to any product category.
Indiana reporting context: Indiana State Police statewide NIBRS program. Its law-enforcement reporting framework is distinct from the NRF retailer survey. These survey results should not be read as Indiana statewide trends.
Retail shrink includes theft and non-theft losses. These measures should not be added together or assigned to HBA/OTC products or individual retail chains. Sources reviewed September 28, 2026.
04 / START A CONVERSATION
Bring a second look
to your team.
Discuss your audience, HBA/OTC concerns and consulting or training goals directly with Bryan. Payment arrangements and a client agreement are discussed personally for each engagement.
463-312-8754 ↗bryan@secondlookorc.comLet’s shape your engagement.
Choose the focus for your conversation.
Open an email inquiry ↗Opens your email app with a draft. Nothing is submitted through this website. You can also call or email Bryan directly.