IL - Family Accused of Running a $7m Shoplifting Ring Over a Ten Year Period

Feds seek to detain family accused of running shoplifting ring

The suburban Chicago family stole with startling efficiency from toy stores, booksellers and coffee shops from Maryland to Texas, its matriarch often dressed in a bulky black dress outfitted with a compartments for stuffing large merchandise, federal authorities said Wednesday.

Lego blocks, expensive dolls, electronics, cosmetics -- even bags of coffee from Starbucks – were concealed under clothing and slipped out of the stores. Little by little, year after year, the three family members were able to make off with millions of dollars of merchandise from well-known retailers such as Barnes & Noble and Toys R Us, fencing the thousands of items on the online auction site eBay, charges alleged.

The decade-long scheme ended after federal authorities say they recently followed Branko Bogdanov, 58, wife Lela, 52, and their daughter, Julia, 34, on a four-day, cross-country stealing spree last month. Agents watched as the Bogdanovs entered stores in Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana, then exited with Lela Bogdanov’s black dress seemingly bursting at the seams, according to a criminal complaint lodged Wednesday in federal court.

full article and video at link ..................... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ion-shoplifting-ring-20140305,0,6669760.story

Suburban Family Accused in Decade-Long "Shopping Odyssey"

The trio is accused in a recent string of thefts that began on Feb. 17 in Oklahoma, continued two days later at malls in Texas and wound through Louisiana Feb. 20. But officials allege the three are connected to similar instances that have occurred over the last 10 years, and have sold stolen property on eBay for a combined total of $4.2 million.

According to the complaint, loss prevention executives at Barnes and Noble, Inc. and Toys R Us, Inc. recently told Secret Service agents that their stores were experiencing a huge loss in merchandise, including American Girl dolls, Furby robotic toys, Lego blocks, baby monitors and baby carriers.

The retail executives worked with eBay and found that a particular account sold large quantities of the stolen items, matching the quantities reported missing from the stores. Officials traced the account to a person living in a Chicago suburb.

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/loca...Shopping-Odyssey-248572421.html#ixzz2v9QBDJQf

I am a little torn that the stores dont want to pay enough staff to protect them from the theft ,yet pass the cost of the theft onto us the tax paying consumers and then complain to the secret service when cuts into their bottom line?

I believe these people should have been caught on a local level long ago.I am kinda disappointed that the investigators are not out catching sex offenders or murderers .
I know we cannot have people running arround state to state stealing stuff but these people were stealing alot of stuff and the stores should have caught them doing this a long time ago. A decent size staff should prevent this issue .

Also what right does ebay have to share info with a private company on personal accounts? I would think that would be for LE to handle .

These people were stealing for years, thought they had a good thing going. Greed kicked in the rest is history. Jmo

ciao

From the link above... (BBM)
"During brief court appearances Wednesday on a charge of interstate transportation of stolen property, federal prosecutors said they were seeking to detain all three as flight risks. The family is originally from the former Yugoslavia, and it was unclear if any of them are U.S. citizens, according to prosecutors.

At her hearing, which was delayed so a Romani interpreter could be present, Lela Bogdanov sobbed into a tissue and occasionally rested a hand on the lectern for balance. When asked to spell her name for the record, she said she was illiterate, announcing in broken English, “I don’t write…I can’t spell name.”

A Romani interpreter? So we are dealing with a sophisicated ring of theives [modsnip]