LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 140 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio
Episode Date: March 16, 2023On this episode, Dr. Hayes discusses the recent ICSC Summit for Organized and Violent Crime, where we hosted industry partners and retailers to help create a wider strategy for prevention of these iss...ues, Tony D’Onofrio calls in from Italy to discuss theft trends in stores, mentioning margins in retail and masking in NYC. Lastly, Tom brings us home with new updates for AI in retail including text to video and generative video AI, and discusses the recent banking issues in the US. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more! The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 140 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hi, everyone, and welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we explore the science of
crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection
practitioners as well as other professionals. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of
Crime Science, the podcast. This is the latest in our weekly update series. Today, I'm joined
as per normal by Tony D'Onofrio and Tom Meehan, our co-host, as well as our producer, Diego Rodriguez.
And we'll talk a little bit about some of the happenings and the context around that. organized and violent retail crime summit that we were hosting here at the University of Florida
and with LPRC here in Gainesville in the Wrights Union, the beautiful building where we have our
annual LPRC impact conference and where we just had the integrate summit that we've talked about
for that event. Very well attended. The goal, again, was to get together a handful of the major U.S. retail associations in the same place to discuss an overarching anti-retail crime strategy, if you will.
like that look like? What are we trying to do as far as preventing individuals, convincing them not to harm stores and people? You know, in other words, what does deterrence and disruption look
like? What are some good practices there? Look at what are legislative priorities at the federal
and the state level? Where are the gaps and opportunities? What's going on with the legislation
we just had last year? what's going on with the
major bill in Congress going on right now. So the idea, again, was legislative priorities
and initiatives. So we had Senator Grassley of Iowa, the senior ranking Senate member from the
Republican Party in the Judiciary Committee, and he zoomed into the meeting. It was fantastic. So with the top
lobbyists from the National Association of Chained Drug Stores, from the National Retail Federation,
from RELA, the Retail Industry Leaders Association, we had in the International Council of Shopping
Centers, ICSC, we had pretty much a quorum in that way. We also had the retail committee leader
from ASIS, American Society for Industrial Security. We had the top two leaders from CLEAR,
the Coalition of Retail and Law Enforcement, Law Enforcement and Retail, CLEAR. We had senior
leaders from FBI that are working the Organized Retail Crime Initiative,
as well as from Department of Homeland Security, DHS, from the Homeland Security Investigations,
HSI. Two of their, including Raul, who is the overall leader. And then we had vice presidents
or very senior representatives from 12 of the major U.S. retail corporations across different
types, as well as just about, I think it was about 10 approximately other counterparts,
the directors or vice presidents from the major malls and retail centers across the United States,
including the Mall of America. We had Brookfield Properties, Mace Rich, and others that were represented. So
it was an amazing group from the University of Florida. I was there as well as we had our LPRC.
We had four of our researchers and some of our other key team members there. So I think it was
approximately 56 executives and residents that went through the legislation, as I mentioned before, with Senator Grassley.
What's coming up, it's a bipartisan, bicameral initiative to do several key things, do some things with the law around organized and high impact, high rate offenders, right?
The key point that we discussed at this summit was not just organized retail crime where
you've got a fraudster, a booster, or in other words, a shoplifter, fences that come together
in place and time and work together either opportunistically or persistently that may
operate locally or regionally or even nationally or internationally. We talked a lot about that
and the opportunities there with past legislation and pending, but also individual actors, high-rate
offenders, high-impact people that aren't part of any other group. They don't work with other people generally, but they create a lot of devastating loss and even aggression and violence. So that's key.
And we don't want to just always look at ORC or incidental or instrumental violence. We want to
look at both and keenly, but we also need to look at those that are kind of in between those two
and that are just very high impact offenders., we looked also at needed research and development. You know, we're a research
organization. That's our lane, if you will. So, what are the strategic imperatives? What are
things that we need from the National Retail Security Survey? Some enhancements were discussed.
The NRF now kind of guides that study, if you will. Dr. Corey Lowe, our senior research scientist at LPRC, operates that, is working through some iterative adjustments and enhancements to the study, a study that myself and Dr. White started. Hollinger came on board and he stewarded that study until his retirement from the University
of Florida and did a super job. But there are always opportunities to get more and better
information from the key leaders across the U.S. of the major retail organizations and other
organizations, but then get more information that's more usable for them now as we adjust and adapt
to and the way the criminals are.
So we also talked about ARCS, which is also an initiative that Dr. Lowe's working on to
get deeper dives from each individual retail organization down to the store level so that
there additionally is a lot of granular information to be able to look regionally and even marketing
from a market standpoint or maybe even in a grouped or communal retail area
like a mall or co-located store. So those are needed. We also talked about the voice of the
victim research that we're doing right now where we are systematically interviewing people that
have worked in or currently work in a retail environment that have personally or vicariously been victimized by
aggression or violence, or even just persist in ongoing theft. To get an idea of how these
ongoing crimes or spite violent crimes are affecting them, what are they exposed to?
How are they responding? Are they upset? Are they contemplating leaving? Have they left? Or other things that are going on from what psychological and even physical harm has resulted to them and others, their coworkers and so forth.
To get an idea, the voice of the victim is not particularly well understood out there or broadcast. We hear a lot about the voice of the offender, but we want to get more out there.
hear a lot about the voice of the offender, but we want to get more out there. So by understanding overarchingly what's going on, understanding at a more granular level and understanding from the
victim standpoint to people that work and are in these stores all the time, that's going to help us
because we identified a better way to create clearer pictures. If we don't know what's going on and we don't know what's going on
very well, then we have a problem, right? If we have a blurry x-ray, we're going to have a hard
time diagnosing and doing the right things as far as treatment. So we looked at what is law
enforcement? No. Criminal justice statistics through the UCR and now NIBRS, mostly NIBRS has
not yet been implemented across the United States or even
in most states within them. That provides more granular information than the UCR, more actionable
here in Gainesville PD and University of Florida PD are using that and we're getting ready to work
with them on that. But according to Dr. Lowe, to Corey's studies, he's showing that less than 50% of known offenders or offenses are reported to law enforcement.
So police only know what we tell them.
And what we tell them is not very much because also additionally only reporting maybe less than 50%.
On average, some report more, some way less than that.
The retailers really don't know what's going on themselves either.
is the retailers really don't know what's going on themselves either. They don't see most theft events, for example, and very few now actually detain or apprehend people for theft. So what is
happening is not well known, much less reported to police. And so the police only know so much.
And that's the official information statistics that most people are relying on, especially the media or popular narrative.
So the other part of this, though, is working on getting better at understanding, getting better at properly recording and reporting.
People might report something as a shoplifting, a theft, which is in fact a strong arm robbery, for example, if there's instrumental violence involved,
threatening or pushing somebody down or something like that.
So – or of course even worse, an armed robbery if there's a weapon displayed or used.
So what we're trying to do is better understand what's going on.
Another part of the picture, in addition to the retailers, what the retailer might know,
in addition to law enforcement, what they might know and how they're both recording and reporting is the opportunity with the mall security or the shopping center security people.
They have valuable insights. How can they get better at collecting and recording that? Some
are doing a super job. We saw examples of that during the summit. But the police don't know.
The retailers don't know what the mall people know necessarily. And vice versa. They don't know, the retailers don't know what the mall people know necessarily, and vice versa.
They don't know necessarily all the time what's going on the retailers because they themselves
may not know. And then finally, we looked at third-party security officers, another group.
We had some of the largest operators there, and there's an opportunity. Many of them are very
accurately recording or moving to that point, but they're not reporting necessarily.
So here's another piece of the puzzle, more a clearer picture.
Try and get some of the mud off our windshields as we move down the road here.
So a big part of this is just understanding and defining what's going on so that we can actually analyze and get a little more precise.
so that we can actually analyze and get a little more precise.
So a big part of this, in addition to the tactical research on how to get better,
a lot of discussion around fusion of information and ideas.
We know that Rela, working with IBM, have an initiative.
We know that there are platforms from APRIS and Aura and from ThinkLP and others, Truth.
We know that there are other opportunities to fuse information together.
How do we maybe pull everybody's together so that there's a clearer picture of what's understandable and actionable, as well as from the lobbyists and government affairs people and the retail organizations and associations. And then moving over to training, what training might be indicated for LPAP practitioners
to get better at detecting and handling and reporting and all these things, and investigating,
what training for security, third-party security officers, for law enforcement officers, whether
they're patrol or investigations,
and then, of course, prosecuting attorneys, state attorneys or district attorneys, solicitors.
So that was another part of the discussion.
So amazing, amazing event.
Hopefully, this is the beginning of the beginning.
We came up with next steps.
They want to look at a research agenda and possibly getting that resource, looking at tightening up the legislative agenda, tightening up the training Maliki and Tom and the crew there.
They did a super job of pulling this thing together along with Kim on our team and the rest of the LPRC team.
So a shout out to them.
We'll move on here now.
We've got a lot going on this week with CBS News in the labs today.
Or excuse me, tomorrow.
Major, major retailer just visited on Friday. More to come,
and more retailers heading in here, and we're working with more and more retailers on getting the five zones of influence and the C-GET-FEAR framework injected and leveraged into
their organizations. I think we've now had three with that many more coming up here just very, very recently where we're getting online and working at the LPAP annual meetings with them.
They want to use these frameworks. And so we're excited to work on that.
With no further ado, let me, if I might, go over to Tony D'Onofrio. Tony, take it away.
Thank you very much, Reid, and really great updates, especially on the legislation front.
I think that's needed more than ever.
I actually mentioned that a lot.
And buongiorno to everyone.
I'm actually sitting here immediately joining the team and recording this.
But I'm going to go back to the U.S. and actually start with a brand new article that just came out of the Wall Street Journal that was titled, Shoplifting Climbs as In-Store Shopping Returns.
And according to the article, retailers say that theft is rising as more people shop in stores,
cutting profits that were already under pressure.
And actually, the chief executive, Jean Jeanette of Macy's, said we definitely had an uptick since last year, and he sees it as an industry-wide trend.
Target said in November that it expected the problem known as shrink to reduce gross margin for the recently completed fiscal year by more than $600 million.
but more than $600 million.
And TJX and company and Macy's also called out higher shrink rates in their most recent analyst and earnings call.
Theft is growing at a faster rate than sales, said Dean Rosenblum,
a senior U.S. analyst at Bernstein Research.
Mr. Rosenblum said that theft is becoming big enough of a problem
that's starting to affect margins, which is why retailers are now talking about it more
frequently.
And then David Johnston, the NRFI's president of tax protection and retail operation, said
that seven years ago, internal theft was the largest category by retailers and again, internal
theft is employee theft and now, said David, it's external theft. Retailers are combating
the problem by adding security guards and cameras to stores, locking up goods and making
use of facial recognition software to identify repeat offenders.
Mr. Gannett from Macy's is also using radio frequency identification tags to track inventory,
adding more security personnel and securing high-end products for locked cables and sensors.
TJX's finance chief, John Klingers, told analysts in February that an unexpected increase in
shrink her margin by 0.6 percentage points in the recent quarters and that follows higher
shrink charges in the same quarter a year ago.
The company said it expects shrink to remain similar to the current levels, and this was unbelievable, for the next two years.
Retailers are locking up everything from shaving creams to soap, said Oney Powell, a 46-year-old office manager who lives in California.
These things should be quick and easy to grab and go, but now you have to get an employee to actually
get them for you.
A month ago, New York City Police asked shoppers to take off their masks before entering stores,
and again, this came after an unidentified man stole roughly $1.1 million of goods from
a Queens jewelry store.
million of goods from Queens jewelry stores.
Switching topics, pasting on the same topic of crime, interesting news from FISM TV on exactly what Mayor Adams is saying in New York.
New York City Mayor Adams said last week that some store customers who wear masks are more likely trying not to get caught shoplifting than shopping to spread, than stopping the spread of COVID.
Mayor Adams said, let's be clear, some of these characters going into stores are wearing their masks.
They're not doing it because they're afraid of the pandemic.
They're doing it because they're afraid of the police.
the pandemic, they're doing it because they're afraid of the police.
We need to stop allowing them to explore the safety of the pandemic by wearing masks and committing crimes.
And this is interesting because the mayor was pushing heavily masks during the pandemic
is now actually pushing things like facial recognition to reduce rampant crime across
the Big Apple.
to reduce rampant crime across the Big Apple.
With the help of official recognition software, he says,
he hopes to crack down not only on shoplifting, but repeat offenders who may be linked to more serious and violent crimes.
So lots of news in terms of shoplifting and crime,
both in the Wall Street Journal and other places, again,
which validates all the great work that's being done
at the Loss Prevention Research Council.
And then finally, switching to a lighter note,
I'm going to go to Change the Age,
who actually reminded us that there are some people
who like to shop under the influence of not the influence
of being hot on shopping, but under the influence of alcohol.
According to new data from the Finders Consumers Comforted Intact, 17% of roughly 2,100 surveyed
U.S. consumers have made a purchase, while under the influence of alcohol in the past
12 months, spending roughly $309 each for a total of $14 billion.
The top drunk shopping categories are,
I guess this is where you go when you want to shop with your drunk,
shoes, clothes, accessories and food,
with 47% of the respondents saying that they shop drunk
while buying these items in these categories. Other
popular categories are alcohol,
cigarettes, and gambling, all
tied with a participation
of 34%. And the one
that shocked me, 16%
of the respondents
actually bought a car
while they were drunk. So it's
a crazy world. I guess you can do
a lot of different things under the influence.
And with that lighter note, let me turn it over to Tom.
Thank you, Tony, and thank you, Reid.
I hope that you're enjoying Italy and look forward to seeing you soon.
But I just wanted to cover a couple different things.
One, I want to start just talking about some news around AI and artificial intelligence.
I want to start just talking about some news around AI and artificial intelligence.
So the newswire is talking about ChatGPT version 4, which would be the new version of ChatG has existed, but not necessarily existed to the greater consumer public.
But this new version of ChatGPT will use the same large language model and generative AI
features as version 3 or sudo 3.5, which is probably what everybody at this point has used, which you see
in the OpenAI chat GPT or the Bing, new Bing Sydney piece. But a lot to look forward to,
a lot to change. So what you should see, probably the biggest kind of change will be the introduction of video, generative video AI.
Today, you can, with OpenAI's engine, you can do generative image, you can do full featured chat
back and forth. And I think that this is important for everyone here here because while some of this technology is not new, making it commercially available and consumer to the end user as a consumer really changes the adoption of artificial intelligence.
And for everybody in the security world, helps kind of allow for artificial intelligence that before might be seen as creepy or scary into the modern day,
everyday life. There are a plethora of apps and applications that have been released in the last
two to three weeks on help for writing emails, research, really, really extremely advanced
options for news reporting where you can get up-to-date information
and interact with a chat engine to give you very, very accurate information. I think it's
important to note that the chat GPT 3.5 that is on the OpenAI platform has data up to 2021.
The Bing, which is the Microsoft piece of using the engine, has newer data. And then,
you know, with reason, we should expect that ChatGPT4 will have even more current data. So,
very, very exciting. I also think that in the next week or so, we should hear and see more about Google's version of BARD, which is not using
the chat GPT engine, but a similar large language model. What does this mean for everybody listening?
Well, for starters, if you were watching the news or reading, Tony mentioned the Wall Street Journal
article that highlighted the fact that retailers were using facial recognition. And I think it's
important to note, it's probably the first article that I've seen
where there's no mention of these type of technologies
being creepy or demonstrative.
As a matter of fact, it mentions it in a more positive light.
Also, in the past week, there were numerous articles,
Business Insider, the Philadelphia Inquirer,
Breaking News Network, TechRadar,
just a whole bunch of articles about retailers deploying
autonomous robots for parking lot security. And I think it's important to note that in these
articles, it highlighted the fact that these robots use LIDAR and other sensors and license
plate recognition and artificial intelligence. The articles in some cases were a little cheeky,
saying that in Philadelphia that they didn't expect the robots to make it through the week.
They are there, and they are observing and taking information and communicating it.
Interesting point here is that it's highlighting the use cases of artificial intelligence.
And I, well, I would say this is somewhat anecdotal. The more artificial intelligence. And I, well, I would say this is somewhat anecdotal. The more artificial
intelligence is introduced to the consumer population, the more widely it will be accepted
in the commercial landscape. And we can see that actually happening right now in real time,
where there are things that just a few months ago would be frowned upon that are now being
widely accepted. It's important to note that with chat GPT, and I can't speak about BARD yet
because I haven't gotten firsthand information, chat GPT is a large language model or generative
AI model that is really predictive in nature. It isn't a logical model. So when you're speaking
with chat GPT, although sometimes it's eerily like a human, it really is predicting what it thinks that you want to hear.
It is not always accurate.
It's a great source of information. LGBT engine in the Bing Sydney format had a conversation with a reporter and basically
said he wasn't happy in his marriage and that the Sydney, which is the code name for Bing's,
could make it happy.
But if you watched the interview, read the article, you'd see that the series of questions
were predictive in nature, which led the engine to answer the way
it thought it should. So by no means is this perfect, but I really do think that it is changing
the landscape of which we are all in today. And it will change our day-to-day lives. I think you
will start to see, if you haven't already, using apps that use these types of technologies.
I absolutely love it for information gathering because I can say I want a current update on X, and it will give me a link, tell me where to go.
So it's really, really exciting.
Switching gears a little bit to the cybersecurity front, there has been a couple large releases of information around malware and ransomware that is being hosted on
Azure and Google. I think it's important to note that Azure and Google have no necessarily
knowledge that this is occurring case by case, but it is in some cases posing a challenge because
some of the tools that are out there are not picking it up.
In Turkey specifically, there was a phishing attack that was registered and hosted by Google
and Microsoft.
So when you did a little bit of research without digging completely underneath, it appeared
to be legitimate and ended up being a malware piece.
I think when we talk about malware and ransomware, education and awareness, I really believe
is the key to being safe out there, patching and updating, using multi-factor authentication,
and just being smart about it.
I think as we continue to evolve, this will continue to be a challenge for each and every
one of us here.
to evolve, this will continue to be a challenge for each and every one of us here. And I think that as AI evolves, we will unfortunately have to change that education awareness because some of
the things that we're doing today will become obsolete and we'll have to continue to improve
on them. A little bit more on the cybersecurity front, there was a Forbes article that really highlighted a Verizon 2022 data breach investigation
report, and it highlighted the attacks on the supply chain. And so a lot of this data at this
point, I don't want to say is old, but is from 2021. But what it highlighted is that 62% of the
system's intrusions had a direct relationship to supply chain. Now,
we learned in COVID the risks of supply chain, and I think we're still kind of feeling what
the vulnerabilities to our supply chain is. And we were and are a global economy and kind of the risk
that's associated with cyber. And I think one of the things that's important
here is in this study, it talks heavily about supply chain. It also talks heavily about retail.
And while some of this is dated, the sheer magnitude of people that were impacted,
40 million customers impacted in the Target breach several years ago, what the impact was on supply chain and logistics.
And what we're seeing is a continued trend around malware and attacks in these spaces.
So I don't think this is going away.
I don't think this is going away, period.
I'm not going to say anytime soon.
I actually think it will continue to evolve.
And again, as technology becomes more advanced,
will continue to be a challenge for each and every one of us on the call. Retailers are prime
targets because they have a large amount of data that is potentially easy to monetize. So,
personal information, customer information. So, I think it's super important to stay
vigilant there.
Switching gears a little bit to the economy, this has been a wild week. So yesterday, the Fed
talked about the inflation. And so while inflation dropped a tad, it is still 6%
over last year. So you're going from that hovering that 8% to 6% with a target of 2%.
So still a long ways to go. And the question is, what will happen? Will interest rates be raised
again? I think the Fed has alluded to that it will. But while this is all going on, and prior
to the podcast starting, Tony and I were chatting about some of the banking things that are going on.
We had two banks basically go under in the last few days.
One was Silicon Valley Bank.
The other was Signature Bank.
Silicon Valley Bank was not a small bank.
I think it's important to note that the size of this bank is a lot larger than I think folks really realize.
It was the 16th largest bank in North America. So I want you to think that 16 may not sound
like a lot, but it is a massive bank. And what occurred was essentially, I think it's important
to note before I say what occurred is that this bank catered almost exclusively to tech
startups. And in the tech sector, there's been some wild things that occurred. And if you really
think about it, prior to the last six to 10 months, tech companies were being infused with cash from
venture capitalists. And so this venture capitalist capital died out. So folks in the tech sector, all big and small, were going to
the bank to get their money. And it's important to note that it was their money. And you had
companies like Etsy, two payroll companies, just massive companies that use this bank.
And in a 48-hour period, there was $42 billion withdrawn from that bank. So I think it's important to
note they had $45 billion in cash on hand, and it was not enough to keep up with the demand.
And unfortunately, the run on the bank occurred, and the bank could not pay back. And why does
this happen? You may not know about this. Well, basically, banks take your money and they invest it and to earn interest. That's how they make their money. This is not 2008. This is not Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual doing bad loans. stock in futures and bonds. And the inflation that occurred caused what would be a stable,
well, a stable way to invest in the past become unstable. And there are some arguments that they
could have done a better job of managing that. But the reality here is that when you look at this,
this is not a mismanaged organization.
This is an organization that did not anticipate the amount of withdrawals.
And I think – and it's a little bit skewed, but basically they had $200 billion in change in what their customers held, and they had $45 billion on hand, which if you're listening to,
you may say, and that sounds crazy, but it's pretty common, actually. 33% to 35% is what
the bank is holding, and the rest is in investments. So we're seeing a change in
short-term options and short-term futures, but this is a very volatile time in the financial
sector because it is the perfect storm.
You have hyperinflation. You have crypto markets crashing. You have a tech sector, which was
infused with literally billions and billions of dollars that that has stopped all at once. So
Silicon Valley Bank did fold. The FDIC did come in and they actually raised the limit,
which is normally $250,000 insurance to cover these companies.
This is not a bailout.
This is what FDIC insurance is for.
Banks pay into it.
So this isn't taxpayer money.
And there is some talk about precedence being set, but the limits on FDIC insurance are able to be changed. And that was what happened here.
And then there was another bank fallout, which I think is a little different, Signature Bank,
which was more of a regional player in the New York market.
But Signature Bank had a little different of a challenge.
They had a lot of assets tied up in crypto, which caused them to not be able to basically pay out what they needed to pay
out.
I think it's important to note that they're two very, very different challenges, but they
happened at the same time.
So when you think of the news and what's going on, you have this kind of hyper reaction.
And that's why the government went and covered the FDIC.
First Republic Bank was
all over the news. First Republic Bank is the 14th largest bank in the nation,
very, very close to what Silicon Valley's bank would look like on paper. I think they had $212 billion in assets on their books. But they're a private
wealth management, really high wealth individuals bank there. And there was a bit of a run on that.
The difference here is that they were very quickly backed by JPMorgan Chase and basically said,
hey, we're going to cover this piece of it. I think with any time there's bank runs or anything like this occurs, emotion is really
important because if everybody runs the bank to take out their money, even the largest
banks in the world would struggle because by design, they don't intend to have all of
their money.
So if you think of a JPMorgan Chase, which is the largest bank, I think they have about
$3 trillion.
If 70% of their customers
went to withdraw money, there'd be a challenge because that money is by design invested in
other things. So it's going to be a very volatile week in the next few days. And Tony actually said,
hey, I'm in Italy, I haven't seen this. But what we're seeing is in the UK, the Silicon Valley Bank branch in the UK was bought by HPC for one pound.
The debt for the bank, Silicon Valley Bank in the United States, I believe, was bought by Goldman Sachs.
And then you're starting to see emergency meetings happening in Germany and other places all over the globe to kind of prepare for the potential to occur.
When these things occur, people by design go to withdraw money, go to move money to
other places, which can create the domino effect.
So that is why the U.S. government raised the FDIC limit for both of these banks to
try to pacify some of the concerns and say, look, we're going
to do the right thing. Don't worry about it. And the FDIC limits are $250,000 per individual or
$500,000 for a couple. And that's what you are protected against if you're an FDIC insured bank.
Just a kind of point of note before I go on to the next topic, if you recall all of the
cryptocurrency challenges, those are not FDIC insured. So those are like many other investments.
So when you hear of crypto challenges, there is no government insurance on these. These are
investment risks that occur. So I wanted to switch and close out with kind of geopolitical, the geopolitical
climate. And I happened to be in Europe last week. And I know Tony's in Europe now. And the
geopolitical climate is challenging. Challenging is probably the best way to approach it right now.
You have in the past so many months shooting down spy balloons. You have a war, a conflict that's
been going on for more than a
year in the Ukraine. And so I wanted to talk about a couple of things that occurred over the weekend
that I think are important to note that could actually have a challenge for us here in the US,
especially from an economic front because of the unstableness of the global economy. So there's been widespread civil unrest all over the world, most recently in Iran, in Georgia,
and a lot of anti-government protests. But while this is going on, you have a whole bunch of
different things occurring. One, China has really stepped up to the plate and is trying to position themselves as a broker of peace.
And so what do I mean by that? They've actually brokered a deal between Saudi Arabia
and Iran in relationships, which is no small feat. And then they're also the Chinese – President Xi Jinping is meeting Zelensky this week after he meets Putin.
And what China is publicly saying is that they believe that they can diplomatically solve a lot of the challenges without conflict, without threats of violence, and really by encouraging commerce and encouraging trade.
commerce and encouraging trade. So regardless of where you sit on the fence with your belief, when you see some of these things, they're showing that there is some positive movement
when they're doing this. Unfortunately, on the world stage, a lot of countries have to take a
side, which creates a challenge. Furthermore, in that region where there's
conflict, North Korea fires submarine missiles ahead of the largest U.S.-South Korea military
drill in years. So we continue to have posturing in this region, and North Korea is right now
in this region. And North Korea is right now advancing more than other companies with their missile capabilities. They still really do not have tactical nuclear weapons. They have strategic
nuclear weapons, and strategic nuclear weapons are long range, large, and really designed to
embody deterrence. Tactical nuclear weapons are short-range and used in conflict.
So the fear or concern in the global community is that when they do get tactical nuclear weapons,
the smaller loans, that they would potentially be a real threat to South Korea, Australia, Japan.
And right now, that's a really, really big challenge. Also, in other geopolitical
news, AUKUS, which is Australia, the UK and the US kind of alliance, have outwardly talked about
submarine deals where the US and the UK are providing Australia five submarines and then
several more throughout all the way up to 2040 and outwardly, very
publicly saying they're doing this to make sure that Australia is positioned to defend
itself in if there was, in fact, a conflict between China and Taiwan or any in that region
because of the proximity of Australia to it. There's no doubt or mystery
in the fact that the Chinese military and navy is extremely large, much, much larger than Australia.
So these five submarines are more of a posturing and a show of strength and solidarity between the UK, Australia, and the US than actual defense
mechanism. I'm not saying that they're not useful. I'm just saying that this is more about posturing.
The Chinese government did not respond right away, but they did respond and basically said
it's a dangerous path to take. And it's both provocative, but somewhat threatening. And so when we talk about the
geopolitical landscape, it is at this point, a very, very complex chessboard, where there are
a lot of activities going in the Middle East and Russia that do have longstanding impacts. And
what does it mean to us on this call? Not so much the
concern of World War III, but more of the concern of uncertainty in the economy and how people will
react. Will they spend? Will they buy more of other things? And what are the impacts on supply
chain when you have these type of conflicts in bodies of water that are major, major thoroughfares
for goods getting from Europe, getting from Asia to the U.S. and other places.
So definitely something to watch.
Sorry that there's so much doom and gloom, but I think that it's a very interesting time
and it's important for everybody to be aware of that.
And with that, I will turn it back over to Reid.
All right. Well, thanks so much, Tom, and for all you do.
And thanks again, Tony, to you.
Thanks also again to Wilson and thanks to Diego.
And of course, thank you to each and every one of you.
Stay safe out there.
Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention
Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and
valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast
is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice.
Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not
reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.