Nowhere in the United States are “porch pirates,” or thieves who steal packages left on front porches by delivery drivers, more likely to strike than in the nation’s capital, according to a new analysis.
Package theft crime rings cost the nation $12 billion in 2023, but the problem appeared to most heavily affect residents of Washington, D.C., more than any other state or territory nationwide, according to a study shared over the weekend by Suzuki Law Offices of Arizona.
Investigators gauged porch theft partly by the number of posts on the social media platform X about the “porch pirates.” Washington led with 193.3 posts per 100,000 people.
Mississippi had the fewest reports of “porch pirates,” with only 8.9 complaints on X for every 100,000 residents, more than 20 times fewer than in Washington.
New York reported a billion dollars in package losses due to front porch thieves in 2023, followed by Chicago, which lost $450 million in goods due to crime rings targeting average Americans.
“In 2023 alone, we witnessed nearly 93 million package thefts, with 261,000 incidents occurring daily,” said Suzuki Law Firm in its report.
Package theft rose during the holiday season as more people chose to shop online rather than in-store. Roughly 300,000 packages went missing daily during the holiday season in 2023.
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Amazon packages made up 119 million of those stolen, and 1 in every 180 Amazon packages delivered never made it to their owner.
Walmart was also a top victim of “porch pirates,” reporting $6.1 billion in losses in 2022 due to retail theft, which included in-store theft and other types, such as porch theft.