Suspects have reportedly targeted golf stores.
The warning comes as Bellevue Police work with local retailers on retail-theft prevention, according to KIRO 7 News Seattle. The outlet reports that police said thefts had fallen 22% year-to-date and that officers had made 630 arrests year-to-date as of November 24, 2025.
An Earlier Bellevue Retail Crime Case
Bellevue officers broke up a gym-theft ring in which suspects used counterfeit driver's licenses and stolen identity documents to make more than $16,000 in fraudulent purchases at fitness facilities, per reporting from Patch.
Golf equipment is sold through retailers.
What Suspects Could Face Under Washington Law
If the golf store suspects are caught and charged, they could face serious penalties under Washington's identity theft statute. RCW 9.35.020 classifies identity theft as a Class C felony carrying up to five years in prison when the value obtained is under $1,500, but the charge escalates to a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years when the amount exceeds that threshold, according to the Hester Law Group.
The exposure can grow quickly if multiple stores or victims are involved. Washington law explicitly bars courts from running sentences concurrently when a defendant is convicted of multiple identity theft counts, meaning each instance must be punished separately, according to The Curtis Firm. Multiple identity-theft counts are punished separately rather than as a single count.
Regional Enforcement Push Amid Funding Fights
King County prosecutors filed 640 felony economic and property crime cases in 2025, the county's highest single-year total for such offenses since 2019 and a jump from 506 cases in 2024, per Axios reporting cited in Hoodline's coverage of the Covington Ulta case. That case involved local and county-level enforcement in response to an alleged retail theft.
That enforcement push hasn't come without political friction. In April, Washington Governor Bob Ferguson vetoed a $500,000 budget item that would have extended a multi-county organized-retail-crime prosecution pilot, according to the Office of the Governor. The veto concerned funding to extend the multi-county organized-retail-crime prosecution pilot.
Business owners who believe they've been targeted by identity fraud can report incidents directly to police.
