Commercial Crimes Division

Commercial Crimes Division
Abbreviation	CCD
Organizational structure
Part of	Los Angeles Police Department Office of Operations Detective Bureau
Headquarters	Police Administration Building, 100 West 1st Street, Los Angeles
Command staff
Commanding Officer	Captain II

The Commercial Crimes Division (CCD) of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is responsible for investigations into select burglary, theft, auto theft, and robbery crimes, as well as enforcing the rules and regulations governing pawnshops, junk dealers, and any other business handling secondhand merchandise.

Organization of CCD

Burglary Special Section

The Burglary Special Section is responsible for investigating:

• all burglaries or thefts where fine art is the primary object of attack, including, but not limited to, paintings, drawings, sculptures, statuary, and other art objects
• all burglaries where business machines are the primary object of attack and the reported loss is $20,000 or more
• all safe burglaries except those cases where the safe is either removed from the premises or lacks evidence of forced entry
• all vault and safe burglaries except those cases where the safe is removed from the premises
• hotel room burglaries and hotel room thefts committed in major hotels, not including motels, residential hotels, or transient rooming house-type hotels
• telephone booth burglaries and thefts committed by professional phone booth burglars using, but not limited to, wheel pullers, lock picks, keys, or other similar tools

The section can also investigate any burglary or theft case at the direction of the Chief of Detectives, or which are initiated by the section. In addition, the Pawnshop Unit of the Burglary Special Section is responsible for investigating the following businesses and dealers on a citywide basis to ensure compliance with the Police Commission’s permit rules and regulations: antique shop, junk collector, junk dealer, pawnbroker, secondhand books, secondhand general, secondhand jewelry, and swapmeets.

(Federal) Major Theft Task Force

The Major Theft Task Force is responsible for investigating robberies, burglaries, and thefts which involve organized South American Theft Groups. These crimes include wholesale jewelry theft, bank distraction theft, organized retail theft, tourist distraction theft, and theft from delivery trucks.

Southern California Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force

The Southern California Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force is responsible for investigating organized crimes using high technological means such as synthetic identities, social engineering, dark web, and cryptocurrency.

Organized Retail Theft Unit

The Organized Retail Theft Unit is responsible for investigating serial commercial burglary investigations related to organized retail theft, with a distinct Modus Operandi (M.O.), across multiple geographic divisions.

Cargo Theft Unit

The Cargo Theft Unit is responsible for investigating:

• fraud pickups, where criminals steal the identity of legitimate truck drivers to trick companies into handing loads over to them, never to be seen again
• investigating thefts or hijacks of commercial vehicles engaged in transporting merchandise where the cargo is the probable object of the theft or hijack
• probable stolen commercial vehicles, upon request, by identifying them using their secondary numbers
• stolen cargo from railways, rail yards, and vehicles
• stolen trucks (five-ton capacity or larger), commercial trailers, tractors, and heavy-duty equipment

The Cargo Theft Unit is a multi-agency task force that deters and investigates cargo theft that occurs on or has a nexus to the railroad or commercial trucking industry within the City of Los Angeles.

Task Force for Regional Auto Theft Prevention

The Task Force for Regional Auto Theft Prevention (TRAP) is a regional state-funded, multi-jurisdictional, and multi-agency auto theft task force. TRAP is responsible for:

• identifying locations used in connection with vehicle theft offenses, including legitimate "front" business locations (i.e. body shops and auto dismantlers) which operate as commercial "chop shops"
• providing training and expertise for participating agencies throughout Los Angeles County
• targeting, investigating, and prosecuting individuals involved in vehicle theft, particularly those professional thieves who organize, direct, finance, or otherwise engage in commercial vehicle theft for profit

Notes

The Commercial Crimes Division's office was located next to the Priority Homicide Division's office on the third floor of the Parker Center. It's not known where CCD moved to in the Police Administration Building after the move from Parker Center.

In the real LAPD, the Commercial Crimes Division was created in 2003 through the merger of the Burglary-Auto Theft Division (BAD) and the Financial Crimes Division (FCD). While the Burglary-Auto Theft Division had existed under that name since at least 1978, the Financial Crimes Division was originally known as the Bunco-Forgery Division between (at least) 1978 and 1996 (with the name change happening in 1997).

In the Major Crimes Universe, a separate Fraud Division is known to exist. The presumed investigative responsibilities of this fictional Fraud Division are found in the Commercial Crimes Division in the real world, and based on those investigative responsibilities it seems to take inspiration from the old Bunco-Forgery Division. It's not known why this separation has been made, as the consolidated Commercial Crimes Division is known to exist in the Major Crimes Universe, rather than it still being the Burglary-Auto Theft Division, which could have explained the separate Fraud Division.

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