00:00My questions, I got a couple things. One for 30 seconds. Last month, Matt Allen from the DEA
00:08told this committee that criminal investigations go hand in hand with immigration enforcement.
00:14Homeland Security investigation special agent in charge Jason Stevens agreed these crimes don't
00:22operate in isolation. Reconciliation made millions that is intended to and will allow agents to tackle
00:32violent crime, including organized crime. Then also, I want to put in the record either
00:40statements or letters on this legislation from over 260 member companies of the National
00:52Retail Federation, the National Retail Industry Leaders Association, Ulta Beauty Incorporated,
01:02Home Depot, National Police Association, National Insurance Crime Bureau, Association of American
01:13Railroads, International Council of Shopping Centers, Intermodal Association of North
01:22America, and the American Trucking Association. Without objections, they will be entered in
01:29record. So I'm going to start my questioning. Oh, by the way, I'll announce that on the Democratic
01:34side, the order is Durbin, White House, Lobachar, Blumenthal, or Ronald. On my side, it's Grassley,
01:42Cornyn, Blackburn, Brett Moody. Ms. Stevens, you're a strong supporter of my bill. You just made an outstanding
01:53statement. The bill amends current law to enable prosecution of organized retail and supply chain
02:01crime groups using interstate and foreign commerce and establishes the organized retail and supply chain
02:09crime coordinator center at HHSI. How would this legislation improve the ability of both law enforcement
02:19and prosecutors like you to tackle organized retail crime? I believe that, Senator, that this would be
02:27a game changer because with the 218 organized crime cases that our office has done in San Diego,
02:35we have not been able to break through to what is going on nationally. We know these groups are
02:42operating nationally, internationally. In fact, the retailers tell us that their trackers are being
02:49sounding off in the middle of the seas heading to different countries, but the investigations stop at the
02:56local level. This is a national problem that's draining the economic resources from Americans,
03:05hardworking Americans, but it's also draining the heart and soul and security of human beings. We
03:12have to be able to bring national solutions. We have multiple examples where national, state,
03:19local solutions work. When we're dealing with, for example, elder scams, we brought a national task force
03:27with the FBI. That's the only way we were able to identify nationals from China that had organized
03:35these scams and were able to actually bring both recall actions on the federal and my office brought
03:44state actions. Fentanyl, we've been able to drop that in San Diego by 37 percent. Absolutely would not
03:52happen without working with Customs and Border Protection on a fast team where we got that done.
03:59Thank you, Mr. Glaue. You've served at the top level of law enforcement and intelligence. We know from DHS
04:07reports that cartels, terrorists, and human traffickers either facilitate organized retail and supply chain
04:15crime or uses proceeds to finance other crimes. How are transnational criminal organizations used in
04:22organized retail and supply chain crime to further their criminal activities? Chairman Grassley, thank you
04:29for the question. We are embedded with the Department of Homeland Security, HSI, and Customs and Border Protection
04:35and all the major ports and with the FBI. And we're embedded with all 50 fusion centers or 50 states and
04:41multiple fusion centers as well. NICB is involved is the information hub for the insurance carriers,
04:47the private sector, and these organizations. We've done this for 115 years. We have seen goods moving
04:53overseas. In Mexico, we repaid over 2,000 vehicles that have ended up south of the border. We know that
05:02these stolen goods are going to West Africa and the Middle East. From my prior role as the undersecretary and
05:08as an FBI agent here in Washington, we know that the supply chains are interdicted with Lebanese
05:14Hezbollah. We've seen that through Hamas and we know the Mexican drug cartels are involved with the
05:18goods going south of the border. A coordination center, a center for excellence to coordinate
05:23intelligence from the private sector and my partners to my left and from the local law enforcement
05:29as well as coordinating operations is critical. This committee is well aware of OCDF and SOD,
05:35the counterterrorism center, counterproliferation center. These centers provide the hub for
05:40information and operational sharing information and coordinating resources as well as tactical
05:44level response. We know the model. We know the successful model and this bill would get us there
05:49or partially there. Ms. Steffen, Title 18 makes federal crime to transport stolen property with a value of
05:575,000 or more in interstate and foreign commerce. Supreme Court case law allows prosecutors to aggregate the value of stolen goods in common scheme to reach that threshold.
06:11Why is aggregation of theft amounts very important?
06:16Aggregation is critical because it distinguishes between
06:20somebody who is a drug addicted who goes in to steal something. Food is still wrong, but it separates them from the habitual organized criminals. It allows you to see the activity in totality and to be able to see the repeat offenses that form the structure of organized habitual criminals. In California, we recently, after a long 10-year fight, made a change in proposition.
06:3936 that allowed us to aggregate and it's already making a difference because we used to have criminals coming in with the calculators to go right under $950, thus leaving them at a citation misdemeanor level.
06:51That's what caused all our products to become locked up except the criminals that were committing the crimes.
07:12Thank you, Senator.
07:16Thank you, Senator.
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