WASHINGTON - Retail crime has been soaring across the United States for the past five years, "with organized criminal rings targeting stores everywhere," the New York Post has reported.

The National Retail Federation was cited by the news outlet as saying that store losses rose from $453,940 per $1 billion in sales in 2015 to $719,458 in 2020.

The largest increase over that period occured in 2019, when total losses from shoplifting increased to $61 billion, up from $50 billion in the previous year, said the report.

The COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and early 2021 "moderated losses," largely because stores were closed or had curtailed operating hours, said the report, mentioning that "now that retailing has resumed, crime has spiked again."