Thieves target baby formula at ACT shops to sell to China

The young man had been watched closely by loss prevention officers on CCTV inside the store, who notified members of the ACT's Territory Targeting Team waiting outside.

By law, while inside the store the offender can't be arrested on suspicion, even though the camera vision clearly showed him stealing by shoving items down the front of his pants.

But once outside in the street, he's fair game.

The police grab the offender, pin him to the ground, handcuff and begin to search him.

A little later in the day, the teams are at Woolworths in Dickson keeping a close eye on the baby formula aisle.

Tobacco was once the dominant black market trade item but now all the durries are out of reach behind supermarket security counters, the hot-ticket item for theft is baby formula.

The chunky size of the colourful tins - most hold around 800 grams - makes them a difficult item to steal. But for those who pull it off and have the contacts to onsell it, there's a lucrative market on offer.

Retail industry sources say Woolworths and Coles supermarkets across Canberra, from Wanniassa in the south to Belconnen in the north, have been the latest targets for organised crime gangs focusing on these high-priced items.

Priced at between $25 to $40 per tin, baby formula is like powdered cash to the shoplifters, most of whom are drug addicts supporting their habit.

The stolen tins are onsold quickly by the addicts to either raise cash for drugs, or as a direct trade for drugs such as synthetic heroin, as is the case with some of the five people - all alleged shoplifters - currently before the ACT court for theft and other related offences

And this type of grab-and-go shoplifting is becoming more brazen as supermarkets seek to reduce staff costs through self-checkouts, a retail industry source who did not want to be identified told The Canberra Times.

So far this year, ACT police have recorded 600 shoplifting offences, with 179 in March alone. Around 1200 shoplifting offences are recorded each year in Canberra.

CCTV can be used to identify suspects linked to previous thefts but in the absence of any hard evidence, shoplifters can only be banned from the store.

"They [the baby formula thieves] go in and check out what security is there, then load up a bag or a backpack with as many tins as they can, then basically walk straight out of the supermarket," our source said.

"Unless there's a genuine security person there and not just a staff member, they [the offenders] pretty much get away with it every time; the supermarkets tell staff not to get involved in case they get hurt. If a staff member gets injured on the job trying to apprehend someone, it's a major issue for the company."

While drug traffickers use baby formula as a cutting agent for methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and synthetic heroin, the bulk of the baby formula is repackaged and onsold to China, where a tin of Australian baby formula sells for twice the price it carried in the Canberra supermarket.

Over 11,000 tins of baby formula, at a wholesale cost of over $272,000 have been stolen from Woolworths in the past 12 months.

"Daigou" surrogate shopping operations - where people target high-end products from Australia for sale into the Chinese market - are not explicitly illegal.

But proving whether these items were legally obtained once they leave the country is almost impossible, which is why any baby formula which changes hands from a local drug dealer to a daigou for the "right price" becomes very difficult for authorities to track.

Daigous can also be a front for money laundering and illicit drug importation.

One of Canberra's alleged ringleaders in the organised shoplifting operation, Annette Keir, appeared in the ACT court again on Tuesday.

An accused drug trafficker and low-level organised crime boss, Keir has connections to another alleged trafficker, Kristaps Fridemanis who, when arrested in April at his Cook home, was found with what police alleged were handwritten instructions for manufacturing drugs titled a "Heisenberg kit", referencing the alter ego of methamphetamine king Walter White from the popular drama Breaking Bad.

Laboratory-grade drugs and various boxes of powerful opioids were also seized from another property allegedly linked to Fridemanis.

Dozens of police-intercepted phone calls and text messages between the alleged offenders revealed a web of organised shoplifting operations across the ACT, largely targeting the powdered baby formula - as many as six to eight large tins at a time - as well as expensive stolen wines and liquor which in turn were onsold for drugs and cash.

While the alleged perpetrators were overwhelmingly focused on how much their shoplifting would generate in cash or drugs, they also appeared to have some, albeit limited knowledge, of where the stolen formula may eventually end up.

"The Jap goes back to China tomorrow and today is literally our last chance to get our money up," Keir said in one intercepted conversation.

Retail crime is an issue very few retailers are prepared to discuss and yet supermarket giant Woolworths lost over $719 million nationally to theft over the past 12 months, with the ACT having the national average theft rate per store.

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Over $16.7 million worth of goods was stolen across the 15 Woolworths supermarkets in the ACT in the past 12 months alone. The ACT had by far the highest adjusted monetary loss per store in Australia, which reveals thieves were specifically targeting high-cost products like baby formula.

In a comprehensive study into retail crime last year, the cost to industry of so-called "external theft", or shoplifting, was estimated at $2.29 billion in 2021-22. On average, the value of theft was estimated at between $100 and $500 by 43 per cent of retailers surveyed.

While the recent operation by ACT Policing and loss prevention officers at the Canberra Centre and the Majura shopping centre has temporarily slammed the lid on the Keir and Fridemanis operation, retail sources say the stolen goods "traffic" inevitably will start up again now a captive market in China has been identified. Police are understood to be watching and monitoring these developments.

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