Phoenix police arrest 3 women in $500K retail theft case

Phoenix police and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office on Thursday announced the arrests of three women for over $500,000 in retail theft.

Alejandra Torres, 48, Jennifer Zazueta-Reyes, 22, and Guadalupe Gamez-Moreno, 35, face several charges for selling and, in some cases, orchestrating the theft of thousands of cosmetics across several stores, including Target, Sephora and Ulta, police detectives said.

Police said Torres and her daughter, Zazueta-Reyes, started selling cosmetics online in 2019 and the group allegedly made most of their money from bulk online sales.

Guadalupe Gamez-Moreno claimed she did not know the goods were stolen in a police interview, according to court records.

Police said that Torres had not been employed at the time of her arrest. They claimed in court records that bank statements showed Torres had yielded more than $1 million in incoming funds and credits to her bank accounts since January 2018.

Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell called organized retail theft a massive problem.

“Just riding over here, I was hearing of another case involving about $300,000 worth of theft,” she said.

She explained that she organized a special task force in 2022 to address the problem.

Organized retail theft cases made up about 1.2% of cases submitted to the office in 2023.

The county attorney’s office explained that organized retail theft crimes submitted to them had gone up from 504 in 2022 to 591 in 2023.

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Phoenix Interim Chief Michael Sullivan said: “We see what feels like, anecdotally, you know, more of this going on. And if you look, it's not just here in the Phoenix area, but it's around the country.”

Nationally, retail crime has been difficult to gauge because organized retail theft is categorized differently in each jurisdiction, and the FBI does not segment it in its national crime database.

Mitchell said that she would like the ability to pursue more severe punishment for organized retail theft crimes. She noted a bill under consideration by Gov. Katie Hobbs after being passed by the Arizona Legislature that would increase sentencing ranges on those convicted for multiple violations of organized retail theft by treating them as repeat offenders.

In a 2016 report, the National Institute of Justice explained that while increasing the certainty of being caught for a crime made a powerful deterrent against crime, increasing the severity did little to deter crime.

In Arizona, first-time class 2 felony convictions usually carry up to 12.5 years in prison, and first-time class 3 felony convictions can go up to 8.75 years.

Torres faces four class 2 felony counts of trafficking stolen property and one class 3 felony count of illegal control of an enterprise.

Gamez-Moreno faces one class 2 felony count of trafficking stolen property and one class 3 felony count of illegal control of an enterprise.

Zazueta-Reyes faces one class 3 felony count of illegal control of an enterprise.

Trials in their cases have been set for August and September of this year.

Reach the reporter miguel.torres@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix police arrest 3 women in $500K retail theft case