Philly store owner uses AI to stop shoplifters

Rich Carucci’s livelihood is his North Philadelphia convenience store.

“I’ve been here ten years,” Carucci told NBC10. “I put my life and blood and soul into this business. I’m here all the time.”

That livelihood was being threatened everyday by shoplifters, however.

“We had like, I would say, two or three shoplifters a day,” he said. “I would say we lost upwards of $50,000 to theft. That’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of money coming out of my pocket.”

Carucci was not alone. According to Philadelphia Police, retail theft went up 27.56% in the city in 2023 compared to the previous year.

Carucci told NBC10 he could only watch after security cameras captured a shoplifter stealing from his store. So he started looking into options beyond the cameras he already had in place. His search ultimately led him to a new AI program called “Veesion.”

The program’s cofounder, Benoit Koenig, told NBC10 his company feeds businesses’ live security footage into their AI system. The AI then analyzes customers in the store and picks up on certain movements that could suggest someone is stealing. That movement could be something as simple as someone slipping an item into their pocket.

“When someone on the shopping floor conceals an item in clothes, bag, backpack, purse, so that they can actually act on the spot and not just see the damages afterwards,” Koenig said.

NBC10 Responds got a firsthand look at how the program works. One NBC10 Responds producer went down the aisle of Carucci’s store, took some candy off the shelf and put it in her bookbag. Carucci was immediately alerted on his phone.

“Okay, so when you were concealing the item, I immediately, seconds, got the alert,” he said.

The alert went through the Veesion app along with a video of the suspected shoplifter in action.

Carucci said shoplifting has decreased at his store since he installed the device.

“If the theft continues the way it was going, I was either going to have to stop my business, close my business, or the other option I had was to raise the prices,” Carucci said.

Veesion said their AI is only in a few hundred stores across the country. But it’s not the only AI program that’s being used to crackdown on crime.

The Loss Prevention Research Council (LPRC) at the University of Florida is testing different theft prevention measures on a larger scale.

Dr. Read Hayes, the director and founder of the LPRC, said his team is working with 110 tech companies and 88 retailers, including Target and Walmart, to help cut store losses down.

“None of them have told us that shoplifting or theft or losses are down or flat,” Hayes said.

Hayes’ team works in a one-of-a-kind mock store and they’ve conducted hundreds of real world projects with store simulations, multiple surveillance cameras and locking devices for merchandise.

Hayes said they’ve also studied AI as a possible solution.

“There’s AI in here that could pick up if you’re not actually scanning an item at self-checkout,” he said.

Carucci told NBC10 the AI technology is helping him keep more money in his pocket.

“It’s been a godsend and it’s already paid for itself like ten times over,” he said.

Philadelphia Police said retail theft continues to increase in 2024 and is up 30 percent compared to the same time last year.