【商业内幕 20140327】为什么小偷爱偷香皂？

满仓

【中文标题】为什么小偷爱偷香皂？
【原文标题】Why Thieves Steal Soap
【登载媒体】商业内幕
【原文作者】Alex Mayyasi
【原文链接】http://www.businessinsider.com/why-thieves-steal-soap-2014-3



一家沃尔格林商场把它宝贵的多芬香皂锁在柜子里。

在旧金山商业一条街上的沃尔格林商场中，顾客经常需要叫来店员为他们打开展示柜。这些顾客不是购买笔记本电池的技术大拿，也不是购买珠宝和高级酒的旧金山富人，而是在婴儿配方奶粉、洗发液和香皂柜台前驻足的中下收入人群的普通工人。

众所周知的是，药店一般会严密看管抗感冒药，因为其中的脱氧麻黄碱会被杰西•平克曼（译者注：美剧《绝命毒师》中的人物）之流用来制作毒品，但为什么是香皂？一瓶仅售6美元的多芬浴液值得如此大动干戈吗？

沃尔格林当然也直到这一点，店员解释说这是为了防止小偷。那么就让我们了解一下被盗商品市场的运作情况。

有这么一本详细的手册——至少对我们这些只懂书本上的道理，不了解街头巷间规则的人来说是这样——是发表在《犯罪期刊》上的文章《小偷出售盗窃商品的获利》，这是基于英国犯罪研究的结论。

商店盗窃商品和赃物的主要市场是城镇地区、经常在街角商店或者街边摊贩上购物的低收入人群。一份英国犯罪调查报告发现，11％被调查者说他们在过去5年中曾经购买过被盗商品，这个地区中30％到40％的男人出于“经济原因”购买过他们相信是偷窃来的商品。不管是有意还是无意，这些地区的家庭购买“盗窃”商品的频率非常高，我们盘问过的小偷都认为他们是“为那些希望获取廉价商品的人们提供一种相当重要的供给渠道，尽管这并不合法。”

这些小偷通过以下5种常用渠道来销赃：

1，商业销赃：小偷把商品卖给店主，店主在自己的商店中销售，或者转卖给另一个店主。

2，居民销赃：小偷把商品卖给个人，这个人把商品转卖给当地居民。

3，兜售：小偷在街边摆摊，或者在酒吧、上门兜售。

4，朋友圈销售：小偷在朋友和家人圈子中散播赃物信息，直到找到买家。

5，网络：小偷在易趣等网站上销售赃物，或者把赃物卖给专业的销赃者，让他们在网络上出售。

小偷非常了解赃物的市场。英国的犯罪调查报告中提到，小偷们会找容易出手的商品下手。报告的作者说，大部分小偷头脑中都有一个“购物清单”，在他们进入商店和别人家中时选择他们需要的东西。小偷有时候还会接受“订单”，有一个小偷说，曾经有人找他要一辆“福特马克5软顶乳白色汽车”，他根据这个标准偷到一辆，卖给了对方。总体来说，小偷只偷那些销赃市场上容易脱手的商品。

在小偷脑海的清单中位列前矛的是昂贵的电子商品，比如Playstation、卫星定位系统、DVD播放器。小偷一般会以三分之一的价格出手，如果卖给二手商店，差不多会以二分之一的价格出手，商店再以三分之二的价格出手。对那些昂贵的电子商品来说，小偷的获利颇丰。

但价格并未唯一的考量因素。执法部门对那些“多产小偷”的盘问结果显示，容易出手比商品的价格更重要。一个小偷说：“当我对一个东西下手之前，我想到的第一件事情是它是否可以出手。我是说，卖不掉的东西我不会偷。所以我在把这个东西偷到手之前，就知道它会去到哪里了。”

这些多产的小偷不但需要清楚了解销赃渠道，还希望能够把赃物尽快脱手。一位入户盗窃的小偷说他曾经花费一个小时卖掉偷来的东西，其它大部分小偷都可以在5分钟之内卖掉赃物。

确保赃物容易脱手的最好办法是偷那些有稳定、大量需求的商品，比如像iPhone这种热销电子产品，但日常消费品就没那么大的利润了。在英国的犯罪报告中，一位小偷对警察说他专门偷香烟，另一位小偷说他的专业领域是剃须刀片：“……所有人，我是说每个人都需要。你拿着一袋子马赫3型刀片走进酒吧，每个人都会找你来买，因为他们都在使用马赫3型刀片。在你这里买，他们至少不用支付全价。”

实际上，像香皂这种日常消费类商品在赃物市场上就像现金一样流通。去年，《纽约杂志》发表了一篇报道，讲述小偷盗窃汰渍洗衣液，用卖出的钱购买毒品。文章说西夫韦百货连锁商店每个月因汰渍洗衣液被盗而损失1万到1.5万美元。

像香烟和香皂这样的商品几乎等同于现金在流通，因为市场上对它们有长期、稳定的需求，即使不摆在货架上，它们也具有稳定的价值。（不像iPod，它们永远不会过时。）由于它们具有标准的尺寸，它们甚至可以被当作货币单位，比如你可以用1包、5包或者10包香烟来交换某样东西，取决于其具体价格。在某些地区，销赃者对香皂这种赃物来者不拒，它们就和现金没什么区别了。

对小偷来说，商品的普及性和赃物市场上的需求度要比赃物的实际价值重要得多。小蟊贼们不会把偷来的东西储存在仓库里，等待买家和市场为罕见的物品给出更高的价格。沃尔格林把廉价的商品锁在柜子里看起来不可理解，但你要知道小偷在乎的是赃物市场的需求，而不是价格。换句话说，他们更喜欢偷下图中上面两个格子里的商品，而不是右面两个格子里的商品。



只有那些专业的犯罪组织才会把赃物放在仓库中，向比较识货的买主出售罕见的商品：



我们可以用汽车被盗的案例说明这种模式。每年，国家保险犯罪局都会发布一份报告，详述当年最失窃率最高的车型。它们无一例外都是老旧、普通的汽车。过去几年里，位于榜首的是90年代中期出厂的本田思域、本田雅阁和丰田凯美瑞。

国家保险犯罪局的Frank Scafidi解释说，部分原因在于街上有太多的同类型汽车，而且它们都缺少新型的防盗系统，让它们成为小偷的目标。但其实真正的原因是有利可图的零部件，他说：“在调查汽车失窃案件时，一些证据经常会把我们引到解体车间，这更支持了为零部件而偷车的理论。”因为有太多的人需要维修他们老旧的凯美瑞和雅阁，所以零配件市场的需求相当强劲，解体车间有时候很乐于销赃。

当然，高档车也是小偷喜欢的目标。国家高速公路安全管理局发布的另一份数据列举了平均1000辆汽车中出险率最高的车型，其中并不区分车内物品失窃还是整车失窃，但依然显示出位列榜首的是价值9.2万美元的奥迪S8、宝马S5跑车、本田S2000跑车和梅赛德斯酷派跑车。似乎大部分小偷喜欢零部件容易出售的旧款汽车，而那些《极速60秒》的拥趸喜欢豪华车。

把廉价的商品像珠宝一样锁起来似乎很奇怪，但是经过我们的分析，原因很简单，就像沃尔格林的收银员所说：“每个人都要使用香皂，所以在街上很快就能卖掉。”



原文：

A Walgreens keeps its precious Dove soap under lock and key.

At the Walgreens on Market Street in San Francisco, customers often need to call a store employee to unlock a display case for them. The customers are not tech titans buying laptop batteries or wealthy San Franciscans purchasing jewelry or top-shelf liquor. Workers unlock cases of baby formula, shampoo, and soap for a mix of office workers and low-income customers.  

It’s well known that pharmacies need to protect their stores of cold medicine, which methamphetamine cooks like Jesse Pinkman can use to make product. But why soap? Is a $6 bottle of Dove body wash really worth the squeeze?

Walgreens realizes that it is; retail assistants explain that the locks prevent thefts. Understanding why requires an appreciation of the illicit market for stolen goods.

A great guide -- at least for those of us with book smarts rather than street smarts -- is an article in the Journal of Criminology, “How Prolific Thieves Sell Stolen Goods,” based on a U.K. crime reduction study.

The main markets for humble shoplifted and stolen goods are in low-income, urban areas where inhabitants shop primarily at corner stores and street vendors and where buying stolen goods is common. A British Crime Survey found that 11% of people interviewed said they bought stolen goods in the last 5 years and 30-40% of men in areas with “adverse area or personal wealth factors” bought what they believed to be stolen goods. Knowingly or not, families in these areas purchase stolen or “fenced” goods often enough that thieves interviewed for the crime reduction study thought of themselves as “one person among many providing an essential, albeit criminal, service in supplying the wants of a bargain seeking general public.”

These thieves sell their goods in one of 5 common ways:

1) Commercial Fence: Thieves sell stolen goods to a business owner (known as a “fence”) who sells it in his or her shop or to a distributor who sells it to shop owners

2) Residential fence: The thief will sell stolen goods to a fence buying and selling stolen goods out of his or her residence.

3) Hawking: Thieves sell goods on street corners, in pubs, or door to door

4) Network sales: Thieves pass word of their stolen goods along a network of friends and family until a buyer is found

5) Online: Thieves sell stolen goods on sites like E-Bay, or sell them to other fences who will sell them online

Thieves and burglars are very aware of the markets for stolen goods. As the study relates, thieves steal what they know they can sell. The authors write that most thieves have a “mental loot list” that they keep in mind as they approach stores or enter homes. Thieves sometimes steal to order -- one thief volunteered that when an acquaintance requested a “Mark V Escort, soft top, in cream,” he called him when he stumbled upon that car in white and sold it to him. Generally, though, regular thieves steal what is popular on the illicit market.

The top of thieves’ mental loot list features expensive electronics like Playstations, gps systems, and DVD players. Thieves can sell items for around a third of their retail value, according to the report, or for roughly half their value if they sell them to second hand shops that will sell them for ⅔ their retail value. For expensive electronics, that means some solid, quick cash.

But price is not the only consideration. The “prolific thieves” interviewed by law enforcement suggest that the ease of selling something outweighs its retail value. One related:

“If I come across something, the first thing I think of before I take it is can I sell it. I mean I’m not going to take it if I can’t sell it, it’s no good to me. So when I’m taking that, I know exactly where it’s going.”

Not only do prolific thieves want the certainty of knowing exactly where they can sell their loot, but thieves want to get rid of it fast. One house burglar said that he took about an hour to sell stolen property. Most others interviewed sold off their loot in as little as 5 minutes.

The best way to ensure that loot is easy to sell is to steal products with consistently large demand. A hot electronic, like an iPhone, may fit the bill. But everyday consumer products are a less lucrative guarantee. In the U.K. report, one thief explained to the police that he focused on stealing cigarettes, while yet another was driven by the constant demand for popular razors:

“... anybody, just anybody. You could walk into pubs with a carrier bag full [of Mach3 razors] and all the blokes would take em off yer. Everyone who shaves has a Mach3 razor. They [buyers] could get them off you without having to pay the full-whack.”

In fact, the consistent demand for products like soap on the illicit market can make it as good as stealing cash. Last year, for example, New York Magazine ran a story describing how thieves steal Tide Detergent to buy drugs. The piece opens by describing one Safeway store that lost $10,000 to $15,000 a month to thefts of Tide detergent.

Products like cigarettes and soap perform some of the major functions of money very well. Since there is a consistent demand and market for them, even when they’re not on store shelves, they retain their value. (Unlike an iPod, they never become obsolete.) Since they have standard sizes, they can also be used as a unit of account. You can pay for something with one, five, or ten packs of cigarettes depending on its value. In areas where fences or other buyers are always willing to purchase stolen products like soap, it’s just as good as money.

For thieves, the ubiquity of a product and the presence of a large illicit market for it is more important than its actual retail value. Small time burglars can’t keep stolen goods in warehouses, waiting for a buyer and marketing products to people willing to pay a premium for a unique item. It may seem surprising that Walgreen keeps some of its cheapest items locked up, until you realize that thieves care more about an item’s ubiquity in illicit markets more than its retail price. In other words, they care more about stealing from the top two quadrants than they do about stealing items from the right-side of the below chart:


Only a sophisticated criminal organization that can place goods in warehouses and distribute more rare items to discerning customers could prioritize by retail value:

We can see this at work with the example of stolen cars. Every year, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) publishes a report detailing the most commonly stolen cars that year. Invariably they are old, mundane cars. For the last several years, Honda Civics, Honda Accords, and Toyota Camrys sold in the early to mid 90s topped the list.

As Frank Scafidi of the NICB explains, part of the explanation is that there are simply “gazillions” of these cars on the road and their lack of newer anti theft technology makes them easier to steal. But the real reason thieves target them is for their lucrative parts. “Investigations often lead us to chop shops,” he tells us, “Supporting the reality that those cars are stolen for parts.” Since so many people need their old Camry or Honda Accord fixed, there is a robust market for spare parts, and many chop shops will happily fence stolen parts.

Of course, expensive luxury cars are a favorite target as well. A different database from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration lists the cars with the most insurance claims per 1,000 vehicles on the road. It doesn’t distinguish between theft of items within a vehicle versus the car itself, but it’s still telling that the cars that top the list are luxury cars like the $92,000 Audi S8, BMW’s M5 sedan, the Honda S2000 roadster, and a Mercedes luxury sport coupe. It seems that most thieves steal old sedans to quickly sell their parts, while theGone in 60 Seconds wannabes steal luxury cars.

It seems odd to see cheap products locked up like fancy jewelry, but despite our graphical explanations, the reasoning is simple. As a Walgreens cashier explained to us, “Everyone uses soap, so it’s easy to sell on the street.”

国庆

这个！说不准！