Flash mobberies are a severe reality for businesses nationwide. These bold, organized heists entail groups of people overwhelming business stores, quickly snatching goods, and vanishing before anybody can prevent them. The flash mobs' boldness, escalating frequency, and the economic harm they cause have shocked the communities and retail businesses.
That said, the police have intensified their crackdown on flash mobbers to stop these incidents. That means you can be arrested for being a suspected flash mobber and spend so many years locked away. Fortunately, a bail bond company can help you secure your release as you await your trial, giving you ample time to prove your innocence. Understandably, given the nature of this crime, you may have been accused falsely, and you deserve enough time to gather all the evidence and prove your innocence.
What Are Flash Mobberies?
Imagine footsteps appearing from nowhere at your business’s doorstep and bodies filling the room with blurred movements. Before you or anyone else can process what is happening, many people have spread out in an organized plot to steal. Hands snatch valuable smartphones and laptops and quickly shove them in bags.
The commotion usually only lasts a few seconds or minutes. Afterward, the mob disappears, leaving shocked staff, scattered goods, and the realization that a robbery has occurred. You also realize that it was not a one-time occurrence but one of the many flash mobbery incidents.
Flash mobberies, also called flash mob robberies or flash mob theft, are organized criminal activities where a significant group of people assemble unexpectedly in a public area to commit an offense before vanishing just as fast. These incidents usually occur with minimal warning, catching businesses and law enforcement unaware.
The technical term for flash mob robberies is ORC (Organized Retail Crime), and it closely resembles looting and rioting. Chaotic conditions usually entice opportunistic people to exploit an event or events. Conditions present themselves so impromptu that the first activity provokes a wide range of destructive conduct, threatening harm to some people, causing damage to the facility, and stealing merchandise.
The Flash Mobbery Anatomy
Organized Retail Crime is an orchestrated effort to choreograph a big scene that uses a crowd of people as cover to distract pursuers. It might sound like absolute chaos, but Organized Retail Crime can be especially coordinated. The word organized means a source plans a strategy.
Social Media Is the Mobilizing Power
Flash mobs depend heavily on social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and even Facebook and Twitter. These platforms allow the organizers to identify targets, plan logistics, recruit participants and even show off the loot of previous mobberies. Usually operating through encrypted chats or private groups, those involved keep a secret profile while promoting a sense of involvement with the group.
Target Selection
Flash mobs target businesses that offer high-value goods, easy entry, and possibly limited security. Prevalent targets include luxury malls, brand stores, jewelry stores, electronics retailers, and pharmacies.
Timing
Flash mobberies usually occur during busy times when the targeted businesses are crowded. The mobs choose these times to make it more challenging to pinpoint the culprits. Some happen at night, as security may be less strong. These events can occur any day and all year roundy. But the holidays and other peak shopping seasons are especially popular.
During these seasons, stores are usually busier, so there is more chaos and commotion for the mob to cover their criminal activity, and unscrupulous and unsuspecting holiday shoppers can convert to willing purchasers of the stolen merchandise.
The Actual Heist and The Aftermath
A flash mobbery’s focus is on overwhelming speed. A mob of around ten to fifty or more people floods a store and grabs as much merchandise as possible, usually targeting small, valuable items. The mob then disperses the merchandise quickly, making recovery challenging.
Disposing and Selling Stolen Goods
Among the challenges that flash mobbers face is disposing of and selling the stolen merchandise. In many instances, thieves sell stolen goods quickly via online marketplaces such as Facebook, Craigslist, and eBay or on the black market. A report published in 2023 estimated that more than 45 percent of ORC fencers utilize online avenues. Separating genuine sellers from these fencers is a significant problem for investigators and law enforcement.
Sophisticated criminal rings might also be laundering the profits via legitimate overseas channels or businesses, making it challenging for the police to track down and retrieve the stolen merchandise.
Targeted Items and Stores
Flash mobberies generally target stores carrying valuable merchandise, like jewelry, electronics, designer clothing, and narcotics. The types of stores targeted include the following:
- Jewelry stores—the concentrated value of diamonds, gold, and other precious items, combined with their small size, make these stores high targets of flash mobs.
- Electronics retailers—businesses that sell Apple products, laptops, smartphones, and other valuable, compact electronics are usually targeted. These popular goods are quite easy to carry, sell, or snatch.
- Luxury brand stores—Sophisticated fashion houses such as Gucci, Prada, and Louis Vuitton are primary targets because of their costly, easily carryable merchandise, such as jewelry, clothing, and handbags, which have substantial resale value.
- Pharmacies—although less prevalent, pharmacies are targets due to high-demand over-the-counter or prescription medicines with substantial street values.
Several elements make these stores susceptible to flash mob robbery. These include the following:
- Overwhelmed employees—flash mobbers exploit the factor of surprise, depending on big numbers to overwhelm less-equipped or understaffed locations during busy business periods when customers are crowded in the stores and staff might be stupefied into inaction.
- Accessibility—businesses located in busy shopping centers or malls usually offer multiple exit and entry points, providing quick escape routes.
- Valuable, easily transportable merchandise—robbers concentrate on valuable goods that are, at the same time, easy to carry and conceal in substantial quantities.
Commonly Stolen Goods
Experts have determined six elements of merchandise that flash mobbers target. These are:
- Enjoyability—is the merchandise fun to use or own?
- Value of the merchandise—will other parties pay good cash for the goods? Or does the mob find the merchandise useful?
- Availability—is there an abundance of this item?
- Removability—are the merchandise themselves movable?
- Concealability—flash mobbers look at whether the goods can be concealed easily.
- Disposability—is trading, using, or selling the item safely easy?
Any merchandise that fits the above criteria can be stolen in a flash mobbery. Electronics, diapers, clothes, non-perishable foods, and cleaning supplies are prevalent targets.
Tactics of Flash Mobs
Flash mobbers employ a few vital methods to achieve their objective of stealing. Some of these are:
- Smash-and-grab—in certain cases, flash mobbers break display cases to collect valuable items such as watches and jewelry as fast as possible.
- Divide and conquer—the mob splits up and disperses throughout the business, simultaneously snatching goods from several locations.
- Overwhelming force—an unexpected influx of individuals descends on a business, confusing the staff and inhibiting any initial or emergency response.
A true Organized Retail Crime might have its own license and accounting books to prove inventory and process sales receipts. Like the American mob founders, these organized rings may also be subject to investigation for other crimes, like tax evasion. Participants also face charges in other jurisdictions other than being prosecuted under city laws.
Criminal Consequences of Flash Mobbery
Prosecutors charge flash mob robberies as wobblers. A wobbler is a crime prosecuted as a felony or misdemeanor based on the facts of the case and the defendant's criminal history. In this case, among the factors that determine whether a flash mob robbery is a misdemeanor or felony is the value of the merchandise taken.
Flash mob robbery of merchandise worth nine hundred and fifty U.S. dollars or less is deemed a misdemeanor and carries a maximum of 12 months in custody upon conviction. On the other hand, a flash mob robbery where the value of the items taken is nine hundred and fifty dollars is a felony. The consequences include a prison term of three years, two years, or sixteen months.
Additional consequences include court fines and paying restitution for the stolen merchandise. Also, if the judge grants you probation, they can direct you to stay away from the businesses targeted in your case. A flash mob robbery also qualifies as a strike per California's Three Strikes Law.
When a mobbery incident is documented, it is usually broadcast on the news. Participants who are recognized and detained for participation may also be publicized and broadcast on the news. In these cases, damages might be pursued from the mobbers for losses that could include medical lawsuits by injured workers, loss of business in the aftermath, and inventory loss.
Note that you could be found guilty of a flash mob robbery even if the other people you acted with were never arrested, prosecuted, or convicted.
Mitigating Flash Mobbery by Business Owners
For store owners, the risk of flash mob robberies is considerable. Even though traditional security precautions like surveillance cameras and alarms can act as deterrents, they might not be enough to mitigate or prevent the effect of these organized robberies.
One recent innovative measure that has become popular is using non-lethal deterrents, including pepper spray, smoke bombs, high-decibel sirens, and strobe lights. These advanced criminal activity deterrents immediately disorient and disperse would-be robbers. You can also install a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) security camera system through which a lifeguard can carefully monitor your business and stop criminals in their tracks.
Flash mobberies represent a great challenge for the police, communities, and businesses. As these occurrences continue to increase, proactive measures should be taken to tackle the underlying causes and safeguard vulnerable targets.
Flash Mob Robbery Vs. Inciting to Riot
The crime of inciting a riot (404.6 PC) is quite different from what most people think of as injuring people, damaging property, and triggering anger. With the crime of inciting a riot, you do not need to participate in the riot incited by your group or yourself. Additionally, you need not have been hurt or actively engaged in violence or rioting to be convicted; urging other people to do so suffices.
This crime is a wobbler. It is mostly a misdemeanor unless significant damage, death, or severe injury occurred during the commission of the offense. In that case, it is a felony charge carrying a maximum of three years in custody. A misdemeanor offense is punishable by a maximum of one year in jail and up to one thousand U.S. dollars in fines. Inciting a riot in a prison or jail facility will enhance any incarceration time you would have served for your crime.
If you made a speech, be it impromptu or organized) during the commission of rioting, your discouragement or encouragement of crowd violence assists in determining whether you will face misdemeanor or felony charges. Like virtually all things, inciting a riot depends on whether you conveyed a message that stirred up the crowd and contributed to the outcome. A riot might result due to a cause or demonstration. However, should it explode, it must be assessed for its purported original objective and what generated the damage outcome.
The prosecution must demonstrate that your messages or words incited the riot and made the people make destructive moves.
Flash Mob Robbery Vs. Looting
California PC 463 defines looting as taking advantage of a state of emergency or local emergency to commit theft. This crime is a wobbler. A felony carries a maximum of three years in custody.
A local emergency or state of emergency are conditions that, given their magnitude, are or will likely be beyond the control of any city or county's facilities, equipment, and personnel—and thus require the joint forces and efforts of several regions to combat. A state of emergency is declared by the governor, and after the declaration, it can only be terminated by another proclamation from the governor. On the contrary, a local emergency is declared by the governing body of a county, city, or the county and city combined and lasts until that body terminates it.
Practically, local emergencies and states of emergencies are often declared in these types of situations: fires, earthquakes, riots, floods, or severe weather that amounts to a natural disaster. Except for earthquakes, most of these situations are often preceded by admonitions to avoid particular areas or seek shelter in certain places to safeguard public property and lives. Weather disasters and fires are more often alerted using radio broadcasts or bullhorns with orders to evacuate. The funds for assistance and aid to the affected people depend on whether it is a state of emergency or a local emergency.
The law on looting seeks to punish opportunistic people after profiting from another person's misfortune. In these cases, people caught trespassing where they have not been permitted before or stealing merchandise from under-protected businesses for goods that are not essential to survival.
For example, in case of a hurricane, people may loot businesses for CDs and electronics such as smartphones and televisions. All these are worthless with no power. They will probably not function after being water-damaged and will not be usable until everything returns to normal and homes are rebuilt to use them. On the contrary, clean drinking water and foodstuffs are commodities for survival and can be surrendered to people in need during the period of the hurricane.
As long as the people who loot remain alive and the merchandise they took remains undamaged, they may obtain a profit from the goods.
As mentioned earlier, looting is a wobbler, with various factors determining what kind of charges the prosecutor will press. These factors include the looters’ preparedness to steal and their connection with the area where they were caught looting.
California’s man-made and natural disasters often affect a geographic zone, and people caught looting in that zone are inspected for their connection with the region (for example, did they live, work, or have any reason to be there). The looters’ preparedness and items taken also determine the type of charges to be filed. For example, a truck full of other people's computers and televisions may attract felony charges, and a looter on foot with an item they may have carried from a grocery store may face misdemeanor charges if the prosecutor can prove they took the goods without payment or permission.
Find a Reliable Bail Bonds Service Near Me
Criminal prosecution related to flash mob robberies can be severe, and if found guilty, you may face significant court fines, the requirement to pay restitution, and a lengthy prison term. However, given the nature of this crime (committed by a large group of people), you may have been falsely accused, or it could be a case of mistaken identity. Fortunately, you can have ample time to gather your evidence and prove your innocence, and that is by posting bail.
At Justice Bail Bonds, we can help you secure your release as soon as you are arrested for a flash mob robbery so you can prepare for your trial. We boast experienced bail bondsmen who are quick, efficient, and confidential when it comes to processing bail bonds. If you have been arrested in Temecula, CA, call us at 714-541-1155 to learn more about how we can assist you.
