Surveillance That Led to Firing Not Unusual

Surveillance of theft suspects, the same kind of thing that helped launch Caltrans worker Arturo Reyes Torres on a killing rampage in Orange on Thursday, is common in the workplace these days as theft by employees soars.

Security specialists say they use everything from hidden cameras to old-fashioned spying by undercover operatives to catch thieves in the act.

While it may seem brutal to fire an employee for petty theft, business experts say that the problem must be looked at from the broadest perspective: Workplace pilfering costs employers $1 billion a year.

Those pens, notebooks, computer discs, piles of scrap metal and other seemingly insignificant items add up to “as much as $200 million a day--about $4 per employee,” said Joseph T. Wells, chairman of the Assn. of Certified Fraud Examiners in Austin, Texas.

“Petty theft is more prevalent today because there’s a lot less employee loyalty to employers,” security specialist John H. Christman said. “There’s been a lot of downsizing,” and workers no longer feel obligated to support employers who may lay them off at any time.

Another problem, workplace security experts say, is that private businesses are reluctant to prosecute even major embezzlers, much less petty thieves.

“It is often not cost-effective,” said psychiatrist Park Dietz, founder and president of Threat Assessment Group Inc., a Newport Beach firm that works with employers to develop plans for minimizing workplace violence. The result is that thieves often wander from job to job, taking their habit with them.

And even when employers want to involve the law, law enforcement is so burdened with violent crime and drug cases that few agencies are willing to expend staffing to catch a petty thief.

“We’ve done a few stings,” private investigator John Warren said, referring to the often elaborate schemes used to help police catch a thief selling the employer’s goods, often by creating a fictional fencing operation staffed by detectives. “But law enforcement really doesn’t want to get involved unless there’s a lot of money involved.”

Warren, a former FBI agent and vice president of the Santa Ana investigations firm of Murphy & Maconachy Inc., said most police departments are reluctant to get involved unless losses are $50,000 or more. “And its got to be several hundred thousand dollars for the U.S. attorney’s office to be interested.”

So employers frequently use video cameras, sometimes hidden and sometimes mounted in plain sight, to act as a deterrent.

“It’s very common,” said Christman, former head of security for the Macy’s stores west of the Mississippi. “You don’t want to accuse someone unfairly, so you set up surveillance.”

What employers can’t do, he said, is tap telephones or place cameras or other surveillance equipment in restrooms, employees’ homes “or anywhere there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The rules often are different for public agencies, which may be restricted by union contracts and bargaining agreements.

At Caltrans, for example, rules prohibit the agency from initiating surveillance on its own. But it usually will cooperate with any law enforcement agency that requests it, said spokeswoman Maureena Duran-Rojas.

In Torres’ case, agency officials videotaped his activities at the request of the California Highway Patrol, she said, but she would not say why.

Private business usually have greater leeway and can act on their own when a theft is suspected.

In one recent case involving an Orange County pharmaceuticals company, a theft ring was broken after a private investigations firm installed hidden cameras in a warehouse from which drugs had been disappearing.

“We weren’t sure who was doing it, so we put in the cameras and filmed several employees coming into the building and filling their pockets with pill bottles,” said Dan Ray, who tracks crooks for the San Francisco accounting firm of Hemming Morse Inc.

Less common is use of tape recorders and eavesdropping equipment like the parabolic microphones of Hollywood movies.

“California law requires that both parties of a recorded conversation be aware the recording is being made,” Ray said.

That’s where private operatives come in.

“We use undercover investigators, usually posing as new employees, to get into situations where cameras and other surveillance techniques aren’t practical,” Santa Ana investigator Warren said. “They can often see and overhear things we wouldn’t ordinarily get.”

He said he usually advises employers who suspect internal theft to have his firm do background checks.

“It helps identify suspects, because there are so many people with repeated offenses in the workplace that we often find people with prior convictions for stealing.”

Also contributing to this report was Times correspondent Liz Seymour.