HOUSTON -- Detectives with HPD’s Burglary and Theft Division worked undercover for months, following five suspects they describe as professional shoplifters.

The suspects, Dimas Reyes, Mynor Granados, Leticia Ortiz, Joaquin Ramirez and Amparo Olivia, lived in two apartments in far west Houston.

They were all charged with engaging in organized crime.

Similar arrests have been made in cities across the nation.

In the Houston case, detectives said they found $97,000 worth of clothes and electronics in the two apartments and at a storage facility.

They said the items came from nearly every major store in the Houston area.

Most of it was already packaged up and ready to be shipped out.

Just where it was going to be shipped is still under investigation.

All five suspects are illegal immigrants.

“They’re so big. If we catch them in Houston, as soon as they post bond, they are off to another city and we never see them again,” Lee Bland said.

The National Retail Federation believes gangs of professional thieves account for $15 billion to $30 billion in losses every year.

In a recent study, 85 percent of all retailers polled said they thought they’d fallen victim to organized shoplifters.

Retailers in Texas and across the country want tougher penalties for the crooks, and they may be close to getting it.

On Tuesday, a Congressman from Indiana introduced legislation that would make organized retail crime a federal offense.

It would also make marketplaces like eBay more accountable when stolen goods are found for sale on their sites.