This bill has advanced since we wrote our summary.
Current stage on Congress.gov: Referred in Senate.
Organized retail theft — the kind carried out by structured criminal rings, not individual shoplifters — would become easier to prosecute at the federal level under this bill. Current law requires stolen goods to be worth $5,000 or more in a single incident to trigger federal charges, so organized rings deliberately keep individual thefts below that threshold. This bill closes that loophole by letting prosecutors combine multiple thefts over a 12-month period to reach the $5,000 federal trigger. It also adds retail and cargo theft offenses to the money laundering statute and expands the definition of "monetary instruments" to include prepaid and gift cards — a common way stolen merchandise gets converted to untraceable value. The bill creates a new Organized Retail and Supply Chain Crime Coordination Center inside the Department of Homeland Security, staffed by agents from the FBI, Secret Service, Postal Inspection Service, and other agencies, to help coordinate investigations across state lines. The center would have a 7-year lifespan and must report annually to Congress on crime trends. One provision worth noting: the center's director can authorize sharing of normally confidential business information between agencies and private companies if deemed "operationally necessary," which expands the government's ability to share sensitive data without the usual legal restrictions.
Criminal Justice & Due Process
- Federal jurisdiction threshold for retail-theft prosecution — Aggregation of thefts over 12 months allowed to reach $5,000
- Money-laundering statute scope — Retail and cargo theft (§659, 2314, 2315) added as predicate offenses
- "Monetary instruments" definition — Expanded to include prepaid cards, gift certificates, and store gift cards
Transparency & Accountability
- Information-sharing authority across agencies — Director may waive 18 U.S.C. §1905 confidentiality where operationally necessary
- Confidential-business-information protection — Director-level waiver permitted for sharing with private partners
- Annual public crime-trend report — Required from the new Coordination Center
- Initial congressional report on Center operations — Required within one year of enactment
- 7-year sunset on the Coordination Center — Authority terminates absent reauthorization
Congressional Summary
This bill expands federal enforcement of criminal offenses related to organized retail and supply chain crime. The term organized retail and supply chain crime includes criminal offenses involving the interstate transportation of stolen property, the sale or receipt of stolen goods, or theft from an interstate or foreign shipment that is committed by, in coordination with, or at the instruction of an organization.First, with respect to criminal offenses involving the interstate transportation of stolen property or the sale or receipt of stolen goods, the bill broadens the scope of conduct that qualifies as offenses by allowing prosecutions to be based on the aggregate value of stolen items over a 12-month period. Additionally, the bill makes the offenses predicate offenses (i.e., underlying offenses) for prosecutions under the federal money laundering statute and authorizes the criminal forfeiture of any property obtained from the proceeds of an offense.Second, with respect to criminal offenses involving theft from an interstate or foreign shipment, the bill also makes an offense an underlying offense for prosecution under the federal money laundering statute and authorizes the criminal forfeiture of any associated property.Third, the bill expands the federal money laundering statute to include offenses involving general-use prepaid cards, gift certificates, or store gift cards.Finally, the bill temporarily establishes a center within the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate federal law enforcement activities related to organized retail and supply chain crime.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 402.
- Action Date
- 2026-01-30
- Date Added
- 2026-04-09
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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