You have misread the article, I believe. The article opens with this quote: "The National Retail Federation earlier this month retracted its April assertion th

You have misread the article, I believe. The article opens with this quote: "The National Retail Federation earlier this month retracted its April assertion that nearly half of the $94.5 billion in merchandise that went missing in 2021 was stolen by retail rings." It later clarifies that the $94.5 billion number that the NRF used is the "total shrinkage" - i.e. all unexpected inventory loss including theft (but not just theft). > "Overall shrink accounted for $112.1 billion in losses in 2022, up from $93.9 billion in 2021 [This is where the $94.5 billion number comes from I believe]. Internal and external theft of all kinds, “on par with previous years,” accounted for about two-thirds — or $73 billion — of retailers’ shrinkage" So they released a statement that implied that theft was up ~28% year over year (by using total shrinkage instead of the theft numbers), and that organized groups were responsible for half of the total theft. The truth is that theft was more or less the same as last year.