NM governor says she sees retail crime while she's shopping

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham told those attending the second annual New Mexico Organized Retail Crime Association conference on Friday that she sees theft regularly.

“In the last 24 months,” she said, “I have not been at a single retailer where theft was not occurring while I was in line shopping.”

The governor said her New Mexico State Police security detail has stopped crimes she witnessed in line.

“We have to do more about preventing it,” Lujan Grisham said in her address at the Santa Ana Star Casino Hotel.

She said House Bill 234, which was passed in 2023, is being put to use. The law gives prosecutors the ability to aggregate the retail market value of multiple shoplifting cases and charge a suspect with a more serious, second-degree felony if the total value of merchandise is more than $20,000.

“Retail crime and organized crime was a priority of mine only matched by this particular DA,” Lujan Grisham said.

The district attorney Grisham was referring to is 2nd Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman.

“Even if you don’t feel you have very good evidence, if you know they stole from you, report that,” Bregman said.

He ended his talk at the conference with a chant of “report, report, report.”

His office has charged 35 people with aggravated shoplifting, 40 people with aggregated shoplifting and eight people with organized retail crime in the last year and a half, he said.

Aggregated shoplifting is a felony that can be charged against someone who has committed multiple shoplifting offenses under $1,000.

Organized retail crime is when an individual steals merchandise with a retail market value of $2,500 or more over the span of one year as part of an organized plan to commit theft.

“I believe it’s all related to drug trafficking, retail theft, human trafficking, illegal guns and the distribution of those that are connected to the same set of individuals,” Lujan Grisham said.