High level LP and security company loses 3.5M dollars in adventure gear

HI guys and gals. I was a security manager for a large retail Adventure chain and was tasked with executing a new asset protection program across all of our stores. I worked in conjunction with our in-house LP manager to accomplish this. He was in charge of the security team and I was in charge of the CCTV operations.<br><br>As I got to know him and his team I realized how the stores were being vulnerable due to the lack of quality CCTV and lack of quality procedures. The company had 3 CCTV cameras per store and they were some of the cheapest they could get in 2009. They were using the billionaire company "redflex" (who you may know for their billboard camera installations)<br><br>One of our stores was having a problem with Organized Retail Crime (ORC) and I was tasked with changing the CCTV camera position to get the license plates of the vehicles. The LP manager had personally inspected all of the cameras and made sure they were aimed properly. I went to the store and adjusted the camera positions so we could get the license plate information for our ORC cases. The LP manager was not happy, and he told me he was trained by redflex to aim the cameras and that he knows what he is doing. He also claimed that the cameras were high quality and that he has never had a problem when it came to quality before. <br><br>Well, the very next day there was an ORC incident and we pulled the footage of the vehicle and zoomed in on the license plate number. I felt vindicated when we were only able to zoom in far enough to find out the state of the vehicle and the first letter of the license plate number. I’m not sure how much you know about CCTV but we should have been able to zoom in far enough to see the license plate number and identify the letters and numbers. The LP manager was pissed and I told him it was the quality of the cameras and the position of the cameras. However, he didn’t want to hear it. <br><br>I ended up in a huge argument with the LP manager and he was calling me a carnival barker and a piece of shit. I decided to take it to my boss, the head of LP, and tell her what happened. I also let her know in my opinion the LP manager had no idea what he was doing and that I didn’t feel the security of the company assets was in good hands. This made the head of LP absolutely furious and she wanted to know what I was doing in her business. I told her I was just doing my job to the best of my ability and she wanted to know what my job was. <br><br>Well, I was hired to take over the CCTV portion of loss prevention for the company, including the purchase and installation of the company’s CCTV equipment. The head of LP got mad at me and told me that I had absolutely no business questioning the LP manager and she was going to make sure I was fired. I was in shock and I didn’t know what to do. I decided to take it to the CEO and explain the situation. He told me to write him a report about what happened. It was a 2-page report and I told him everything that happened. <br><br>By surprise, he was completely on my side and decided to personally inspect all of the security cameras across all of the stores in his district. He took a small sample of stores and had his LP manager personally inspect the equipment. After about 6 months he came back to me and told me that 15% of the cameras across all of the stores in his district were not properly aimed, and that 75% of the stores in his district had extremely poor quality CCTV due to the camera position. He told me the culprit behind these issues was the LP manager for his district.<br><br>He directed me to personally audit the stores and make sure all of the cameras were of the highest quality that the company could afford. He also wanted me to personally inspect all of the CCTV equipment before it was installed. I did this and we purchased all of the CCTV equipment for approximately 50% of our budget. He told me to use the rest of the budget to hire a team of auditors and security professionals to install and aim all of the CCTV cameras. <br><br>I hired a professional team and it only cost about 1/4 of the remaining budget. This left us with a little bit of extra money and we decided to purchase some higher quality CCTV equipment for the stores that were targeted by ORC. We also recruited our in-house LP manager to personally inspect the equipment for quality and aim. He put in a lot of hard work and did a great job.<br><br>Well fast forward a year and the CEO decided to look at the numbers for shrinkage across all of the stores. We all met in the boardroom and got the numbers. The company had seen a $3.5 million dollar loss in the past year. The CEO was shocked and in disbelief when he heard the numbers. He asked everybody in the room to give their opinion on why this was happening, and the head of LP started blaming it on the CCTV team. She blamed it on the camera angles, and the quality of the cameras. She also said that the CCTV team failed in their duties and that they are not qualified to do their jobs.<br><br>I couldn’t take it any longer and I blurted out at the top of my lungs that it was due to the LP manager’s ineptitude and lack of knowledge about the security cameras. The head of LP got furious and slammed her fist on the table. The CEO got mad at both of us for yelling. And the LP manager just got mad at the whole situation. I got up and decided to leave the meeting. It was a disaster and I didn’t want to be a part of it. <br><br>I never saw the LP manager again and he eventually quit. The LP team was dismantled and I was tasked with forming a new LP team that included the former LP manager and some of his employees. We worked closely together to identify assets that were vulnerable and we made sure that the CCTV coverage was of the highest quality. About a year later the CEO got the numbers again and we had a $1.5 million dollar loss across all of the stores. The CEO was overjoyed and said it was the lowest shrinkage in company history.<br><br>They did an investigation and it was found out that the head of LP and the LP manager were colluding to steal company assets. The LP manager was the inside man and the head of LP was the outside man. The CEO was devastated when he heard the news but was happy he made the right decision in firing the LP manager and dismantling the LP team.