Previewing the 2026 Western States ORCA Conference

Written By London Kelley

The 2026 Western States Organized Retail Crime Alliance (WSORCA) Conference brings together retailers, law enforcement, prosecutors, analysts, and technology partners with one shared goal: strengthening the fight against organized retail crime.

Ahead of this year's event in Oceanside, California, Mike Zacher, Law Enforcement Vice President of WSORCA, and David Iorillo, Supervising District Attorney Investigator with the San Diego County District Attorney's Office, explain why collaboration remains one of the industry's greatest strengths.

Why are partnerships so important in organized retail crime?

Organized retail crime doesn't stop at city or state lines.

Investigations often involve multiple jurisdictions, retailers, prosecutors, and law enforcement agencies. Building those relationships before a case begins allows investigators to move faster, share intelligence more effectively, and coordinate stronger responses.

What will attendees learn at the conference?

The conference will focus on the issues shaping organized retail crime investigations today, including:

  • Cross-state investigations

  • Prosecution strategies

  • Online marketplaces

  • Cargo theft

  • Emerging technologies like RFID

  • Information sharing across agencies and retailers

Beyond the educational sessions, attendees will have opportunities to build relationships with professionals facing many of the same challenges across the western United States.

Why does the Western States ORCA Conference matter?

The conference is designed to help professionals share best practices, strengthen partnerships, and build networks that continue long after the event ends.

For investigators, retailers, prosecutors, and technology partners, those relationships often become the key to solving future cases.

  • Marty Carpenter (00:00.099)
    Mike, David, welcome to the show. this conference is called Turning the Tide Against Organized Retail Crime. So, when you hear that phrase, what does it mean to you right now, Mike? What does that indicate to you, turning the tide against ORC?

    Mike Zacher (00:23.115)
    What I see is that you know, the r the orcas throughout the states, law enforcement, prosecuting attorneys, I see that all of this effort that's been put into combating ORC is kind of evolving organically, right? So there's been a lot of this loss that's been taking place by people who figured out how to

    to commit ORC, but what I see is that there's this larger response from all of us together in these different spaces that is kind of coming together. And I see that we're on the verge of some really solid action against that, especially on the coming up with Corca being close to being passed. It's like we're seeing this large response that maybe has taken a couple of years. But I think that with all of this work that's been done between the different workers and law enforcement everywhere across the country is that I see that we're getting ready to turn the tide. So it's an appropriate title.

    Marty Carpenter (01:10.295)
    David, one of the themes behind this conference is partnership and some of the best solutions in ORC come from bringing a lot of people together retailers, law enforcement, prosecutors, analysts, and technology partners. Why is that collaboration so important in these cases?

    David-SDORCA (01:12.27)
    So

    David-SDORCA (01:25.694)
    That's funny.

    You know, th that's one of the reasons why these work has come into fruition is because of the need to kinda collaborate with partnerships, you know. law enforcement have limited budgets, prosecutorial offices have limited budgets and and resources. And reaching out to the retail partners, whether it be with cameras, with investigators, helping them enhance their investigations, allowing them some sometimes they'll use technology that we don't have access to like RFID. So it it's a way to have a a strong partnerships with each other.

    other brings these cases together full circle. And as the courts have become less and less prone to providing strong prosecutorial actions because the law sometimes are working against us, it's best if we have a kind of a 360 holistic approach to all these cases and bring the partnerships from law enforcement, loss prevention and and technology partners into the same spectrum so we can have one kind of kind of more complete investigation and case to present to the courts and the judges.

    Marty Carpenter (02:25.582)
    That makes a lot of sense. Mike, what are you seeing in terms of how organized retail crime crews operate again across jurisdictions? How does that change the way investigations have to work?

    Mike Zacher (02:36.33)
    there you have to have experience working in it several different means, right? So we have the individual, the booster that will go and steal from the retailers that'll be kind of their sole proprietor and be listing those things through online marketplaces. So we have that and then we have whether it's online fences that are operating that can send stuff all across the country around the world. Or we have brick and mortar fences, right? So we know that ORC can be perpetrated in so many different ways and then that's not even to include traveling groups, right? So throughout the West

    We know that there are groups that are just traveling around that are engaging in different levels of ORC. But from this, you have to

    You have to have experience or at least know who to call when you're working with these different types of groups. If it's the individual, I need to know who to get a hold of and direct process to through the online marketplaces. If it's a brick and mortar, I need to be able to collaborate between local law enforcement and the ORC investigators from the different retailers, and they all have to partner as well because they're likely all being impacted by the same boosters who are then selling to the same fence. So we're seeing all these things. And then as far as the travelers, I need to know that if this is somebody who's coming out of Southern California that's traveling.

    up the the west coast, well I can get a hold of David. B because of our initiatives between Western states and all the surrounding orcas, a lot of this is just knowing who to call, who to work with, because we're all doing the same thing. It's good to know who I can call to to help me if I need it.

    Marty Carpenter (04:01.112)
    So David, you're in San Diego and you've been on this show before talking about these issues. from where you sit, what has changed in the ORC landscape over the last few years, especially in Southern California and maybe across the West as well?

    David-SDORCA (04:16.038)
    well, you like Mike was just saying, you know, with at the state level there's much more legis push for legislation that can be affecting how we address RC prosecutions and cases and investigations. There's some hopefully some national level legislation we can work on as well. Like in San Diego and California we have now Prop thirty six and since December of twenty twenty four Prop thirty six has given us the opportunity to go back in and you know charge more favorably favorably.

    towards prosecutions. We can aggregate cases, we can put together charges of suspects. So if we have a suspect or a crew that's going to multiple retailers and they can't quite hit the threshold of felony level, then we can aggregate these values together and make it a felony ch charge. And you know unfortunately as in California they changed the the threshold and from state to state it might change. When I first became a a law enforcement person and almost 30 years ago it was a $400 limit from misdemeanor to felony. Now

    In California is $9.50. In some states, it might be as much as $2,000. So, you know, we want to have some consistency of prosecutions and charges, and in California, we've done that, and I think in some of the regional states like Nevada and the Western states partners, we're looking to have a more consistent process for charging these cases, and that includes the value of loss.

    Marty Carpenter (05:40.495)
    Yeah, it's certainly an example of a an issue that crosses state borders, so states need to be working together on them. Prosecution strategy is another major piece of this issue. Building a strong case often means connecting incidents and documenting patterns showing the organizational nature of a crime. Mike, what do retailers and investigators need to understand about making those cases more prosecutable?

    Mike Zacher (06:07.007)
    I I mean ultimately if we're looking at what makes a solid case evidence, right? So we need to understand

    What's the quality of the evidence that we're getting from our retail partners? We need to ensure that we're getting all the surveillance footage. We need good reports. We need to ensure that surveillance, if it's on fencing operations that's being conducted, we get all of that. And we need to be able to vet it and we need to be able to work on those leads as well. In addition to that, we need to make sure that we're getting solid identifications of who our subjects are. Right. And so the difference between, like, say, a state prosecution versus federal is that, you know, depending on like what David was talking about, is we've had a lot of different

    Legislative actions that have taken place throughout the states, and many of those have met stiffer penish penalties or punishments for retail-related crimes. And so, if we're looking at whether or not there's activity that's in one state and then there's activity in another state, is it is it worthwhile to consider state prosecutions for overall a good global outcome as opposed to whether or not we do decide to push this to the federal level? Like, we need to be able to

    to see what is the overall state adjudication gonna look like between different states as opposed to a single federal prosecution. And based upon that, that may determine whether it's worthwhile for a federal prosecution or on the state side. And

    Oftentimes when we're talking with our retail partners, they you know there's the hey let's consider this as a federal case. It's like sure we can do that, but at the same time, we also need to like weigh what's the cost benefit versus what's the actual overall benefit to doing this on the state side. You might actually have a larger impact prosecuting this on the state side now. So those are those are things that we want to ensure that we're communicating with our retail partners about so they have a good understanding of what to expect for these cases.

    Marty Carpenter (07:56.783)
    All right, let's talk about online marketplaces and the movement of stolen goods. This has been a recurring issue in ORC for years. David, I want to come to you on this. What are investigators and retailers learning about how stolen merchandise moves, and where are the opportunities to disrupt that movement?

    David-SDORCA (08:16.012)
    Yeah, you know, the online marketplaces is have made a it certainly a challenge for law enforcement because there is an individual aspect to it. Anybody can open a a marketplace account somewhere and and start selling stuff online. So it becomes a challenge to kind of track those cases and sometimes the the online marketplaces aren't as you know, law enforcement friendly. They don't provide a a lot of data. And sometimes there there really isn't a lot of vetting out as far as, you know, who owns the account. They don't

    spend lot time verifying that the person is an actual person. And so we see that both with you know fraud fraudulent accounts and fraudulent advertising through you know different marketplaces. I think the challenge is a lot of the you know I will say and I think Mike would probably agree with me is that a lot of the good basic investigations that we get that lead us to these online dealers comes from the retailers. We've had several cases here in San Diego that have gone, like Mike was just saying both local but also federal because we we have been able to make solid progress

    Through the actions of the lost prevention people who are doing the cases. I and I I really like to reiterate every time I talk about that is how important the retail partners are, not just to the investigations and these workers, but kind of improving the the kind of the abilities of the agencies because they have access to online platforms and OCIN technology that we may not necessarily have access to because of legal restrictions of what we can look at. So I think for for me, I like to think that the online platforms are

    Challenging, but the retailers, the LP people, are really driving the momentum on how well we do investigations on those.

    Marty Carpenter (09:52.784)
    Seems like more and more we're talking about cargo theft on this show, which is also a part of the conversation at the conference. We've talked on this show about how cargo theft connects to broader organized crime activity. So, Mike, why is it important for ORC teams and cargo theft investigators to be in the same room when it comes to cargo theft?

    Mike Zacher (10:15.133)
    I mean ultimately what you're talking about is organized crime related to store merchandise just at scale. Right? So where we ha may have the individual booster that goes out and impacts these retailers in large quantities. Well

    They're going to be taking that merchandise, they're either going to find a fence to sell it to, or they're going to try to fence it themselves online. Well, if you're looking at cargo theft, you're attempting to do that at a much higher scale. That merchandise is going to go somewhere. It's going to be feeding some sort of retailer or some sort of online fence. And so I think that all of us that are involved in these types of investigations need to collaborate because who's to say that the person who is boosting at the store level is not selling potentially to the same person or in some link of the organization as the

    people who are committing the cargo theft. I think that if there's any link between people that are stealing merchandise for the purpose of resale, we should probably be collaborating amongst all of these different groups because we're all gonna bring something to the table and we're likely all gonna have information that's relevant for each other's investigations.

    Marty Carpenter (11:18.639)
    I want to talk about emerging technology, and I think a lot of people hear that term emerging technology and they immediately think about new new tools or databases or surveillance systems. But technology really only works if people are sharing information and using it effectively. I I want to come back to David on this one. since they only work when people are are sharing information effectively, what role do you see technology playing in the next phase of ORC investigations?

    David-SDORCA (11:48.025)
    Well you know what the the

    Implementation of things like RFID and tracking of of a product, that's probably one of the more interesting technologies and how we can utilize it for cases. You know, back in the day, twenty years ago, if you go to a a location you you pull a bunch of stolen merchandise, you know, trying to go through that systematically and and carving out who it belongs to and tracking where the case you know, where that potentially item was stolen from was very challenging. But now with RFID and more retailers using it, I you know, obviously it started off as product

    data analytics and tracking s software for, you know, you know, merchandising and and stuff like that. But now, like Mike was just talking about with cargo theft, you know, the that item can be tracked from the very beginning of its journey all the way across to the tr through the shipping process to the store and then if it's stolen or sold we can we can track that. So I know there are I don't want to talk about too many things with it, but I know that R F I D is being implemented more thoroughly and at this point there's some

    processes in place where we will be able to share information. So I mean if RFID is from five different retailers, right now they may only have access to the one individual store, but in the law enforcement spectrum we're gonna be able to have access to all of the RFID from all of the retailers that are using it. And that'll make it a lot easier for us to do you know roadside stops or you know ORC investigations when we have the ability to track data in a house or a vehicle using RFID.

    So I think that that's one of the more interesting pieces of technology. I I hope more retailers kind of grab onto that and start using it with with an eye towards helping investigations but also their own data analytics.

    Marty Carpenter (13:32.176)
    You know, we've been doing this show for about three years now, and Mike, one of the things that stands out about this conference to me is that it grew out of conversations between ORCA leaders across several states. So we've seen this issue evolve so much in the time we've been doing this show, and then to see the way that the approach to combating organized retail crime has changed. What does it say to you that organizations across the western United States are choosing to coordinate in this way, coming together in a conference?

    Mike Zacher (14:00.828)
    It it makes the most sense. And so I I think of things just like I said earlier is the orca's kind of evolving organically, right? So in order for us to be

    To make an impact on ORC, we have to start at the smaller level of an individual ORCA comprised of, you know, loss prevention AP, investigators from law enforcement, and prosecuting attorneys. And so there we get together and we discuss what's impacting our jurisdictions and we talk about it. And then we understand that it's not just in in our local jurisdictions, it's across the West. Everyone is doing essentially the same thing. We're working the same type of cases with the same type of legal issues, with the same type of burdens of evidence. And so it

    makes sense for us all to partner together. And that, you know, with Western states kind of evolving from our first in-person conference in Draper, Utah a couple years ago, and then what we saw when we brought everybody together in Seaside Oregon this last year is that

    Folks got together, we got to go over and discuss really good content, go over case studies to see, hey, how can we benefit ourselves if we work together and what are other people doing that we should establish best practices for? And I think that it really made a a pretty good impact. And so what I see is not only did we get that stuff through the training, but we also got to talk about this in networking after the fact. It's like that evening we were all together seeing each other talking about our cases and then how we can expand this to work together with people throughout.

    the West. And what I see coming up in Oceanside is another great opportunity for us to learn about a wide range of topics related to ORC, but for us to collaborate, for us to network, for us to get back together and talk to everybody who's doing the same work and figure out how we can do it better. And then figure out how we can work together for stronger cases and make a larger impact in ORC overall.

    Marty Carpenter (15:53.262)
    Yeah, conferences can kind of fall along a spectrum of very effective to less effective. This one feels more like a team building exercise, if anything. It was just teammates who happen to be in other states. So I love this to see that this whole group's getting together. I'll get you out of here on this, and David, I'll come to you for this one. For someone who's planning to attend, whether they work in retail loss prevention, law enforcement, prosecution, analytics or or even technology, what should they be hoping to take away from the Western States ORCA conference?

    David-SDORCA (16:23.626)
    You I'll go back to what Mike just said about impact. You know, I think it's really important to have these kind of global, regional, large scale conferences that can bring together the partners necessary to have the most impact on like the the the conference is saying, changing the tide or turning the tide on RC. You know, we have all these different partners, all these different tools. What I might be doing here in San Diego might not yet have translated to something that Mike is doing in Oregon, but eventually it'll come down to him. So having the an opportunity to bring

    all these you know experienced partners from the loss prevention world, from the prosecuting world, and from law enforcement into the same kind of spectrum, you know, it it g it highlights the impact that we're having on the programs, how we're how we're impacting RC investigations, but it gives them an opportunity to kind of you know highlight the work they're doing. And every little piece i is a part of a a larger puzzle, you know, and so I say that this Western States Conference is a very impactful opportunity to have everybody come together

    and really flourish and build out the partnerships that are necessary. Mike has made excellent points about, you know, making partners and meeting people. And, you know, sometimes in an investigation, whether it be law enforcement or loss prevention, if you just find that one last partner or one last piece that you need, and it might be some way that technology's being used somewhere else or the one way that someone did a interview somewhere, a technique that they use to, you know, get into a fencing location. And that might be enough to change the tide where you're at in

    in any part in the Western states or in the country.

    Marty Carpenter (17:56.986)
    The 2026 Western States Organized Retail Crime Alliance Conference, Turning the Tide Against ORC, will take place this October in Oceanside, California. Retail's most wanted will be there bringing you conversations with the people working every day to make communities safer and disrupt organized criminal activity. David, Mike, thanks so much for giving us a little preview today about what's to expect in October. And as always, thanks so much for all you do to fight back against organized retail crime.

    David-SDORCA (18:26.638)
    Thanks for having us.

    Marty Carpenter (18:28.282)
    All right, that's it for this episode of Retail's Most Wanted. Thanks to our presenting sponsor, LVT. And don't forget to hit that subscribe or follow button so you can catch each new episode. We drop a new one every two weeks. We're also on X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Thanks for being with us, everyone. And as always, keep up the good fight.

    Mike Zacher (18:28.404)
    Thanks, sir.

London Kelley
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Building a Smarter Response to Cargo Theft