The Loyola bookstore was victim to an apparent “ring” of shoplifters targeting New Orleans area college bookstores, according to a bookstore official. More than $20,000 were declared lost based on a recent inventory report.

Bill Edmonds, division vice president of operations for Validis Resources which operates the Loyola bookstore, visited their New Orleans location last week. He said those responsible “were not students.”

“A group of people worked together to steal a number of new and used textbooks from the bookstore,” Edmonds stated in a press release. He also said the bookstore did not believe anyone in the Loyola community was involved and that security measures were being put into place.

Lt. Angela Honora with University Police said that when the time comes for students to buy books for spring classes, they will assign a detail officer to deter new thefts and to hopefully catch the thieves.

Edmonds mentioned that someone from the University of New Orleans bookstore had tipped them off to possible thefts.
UNO bookstore general manager Patrick Linn said another bookstore contacted him a month ago about a substantial number of books people resold to their stores. Then Linn converted from self-serve to clerk-serve, which means only bookstore clerks can go down and get the books.

Linn said that his competitor told him he was seeing fewer books being resold to his store after the switch from self-serve to clerk-serve.

Linn contacted Loyola’s bookstore to make them aware of the situation and the actions he had taken.

“It had escalated to a point where it was out of hand,” Linn said.

Devin Villegas, a manager for Chimes Bookstore on City Park Avenue, began seeing a pattern and contacted college bookstores across the area.

“There are times when people would bring in questionable amounts of books, like a lot of them or they were brand new,” he said.

When asked if he saw the same people bringing in books repeatedly, Villegas said he doesn’t see the people who resell the books, but he does see a large amount of the same books.

Some suspicious bulks of books from Loyola classes that raised his attention included business law books and managing human resources books.

“It’s not our job to police our inventory, but I would be morally bankrupt not to tell these people something,” Villegas said. He called all the bookstores and told them to check their inventories.

They do have a video surveillance system and have cooperated with five different police officers about book thefts, one of them from UNO, he said.

“It is a situation still under investigation,” Honora  said. “There have been communications with the surrounding bookstores in the city. We are not sure that they are not students.”

Honora admitted that in past incidents, book thieves have had no affiliations with the Loyola community.

Honora also said that no one from UP had gone to Chimes Bookstore to ask any questions.

Jean-Paul Arguello can be reached at [email protected].