are you seeing more packages being stolen this year? absolutely. i think it s becoming quite the epidemic. one survey found 23 million americans have had a package stolen. in this holiday season, maybe the biggest heist yet with more than a billion packages being delivered as more people do their shopping online. that one as well. we re going to be running two teams. make sure everybody is vested up. this police unit is trying to catch package thieves in the act. a flat-screen tv. it s made to look like a blu-ray player. someone trying to steal this will be disappointed when they open it up. absolutely. there s nothing in here. as you see someone try to steal this, you ll jump out and arrest them. we have two surveillance teams on packages placed at people s doorsteps. the chances of one of them being stole suspect possible. lieutenant rhinert says it s
often left on people s doorsteps making them easy targets for thieves. yes, but police are working hard now to try to stop that problem. cnn digital correspondent has details for us. victor, renee, it s happening all over the country. package thieves are snatching away people s holiday gifts. so the days leading up to christmas, i spent time with one police department that s using a clever tactic to try and stop the grinch. as you can see he s thinking about it and he walks right up to the front there and then goes ahead and takes the package. it s something that s happening all across the country, some of it caught on camera. are you seeing more packages being stolen this year? absolute liz. one survey found 23 million americans have had a package stolen. in this holiday season, may be
all right, welcome back to the newsroom, this weekend, delivery trucks scrambling to get packages to destinations in time for christmas. that s a fact not lost on the thieves who are also hoping to get their hands on your presents before you do. cnn s dan lieberman is here with more information on the problem of holiday thefts. the porch pirates. that s right, it s good to see you. it s happening all over the country. package thieves are snatching away people s holiday gifts. in the days leading up to christmas, i spent time with one police department that s using a clever tactic to try and stop the grinch. he s thinking about it. he walks right up to the front there. and then goes ahead wow. takes the package. it s something that s happening all across the country. some of it caught on camera.
any package thieves while we were with them, but said if you have a package stolen, file a police report. back to you guys. dan, we saw some cameras there. are those proven to help at all? yeah, they are. police are actually using them. people are sending in the video files, and they ve been able to make identifications from these home surveillance cameras, so it is making a difference, but, obviously, it s pretty hard to catch when there are so many package thieves out there. yeah, i d imagine that. dan lieberman for us, thanks so much. you got it, happy holidays. new reaction from russia on president trump s decision to provide weapons to ukraine, saying the move will further inflame tensions between the u.s. and russia. and a former marine is accused of planning to attack san francisco during the holidays. we have details on how the alleged plot was stopped. , pain from a headache can make this. .feel like this.
individual stole a package is really it s heart breaking. reporter: now, the package thieves, we didn t see the police catch any of them when we were at the police department. but we did reach out to the biggest shippers out there, and they said if you think you have a stolen package, contact them and file a police report. what it amazes me is just the variety of thief. you see a grandmother. it looks to be a grandmother, this woman. you re seeing young women, young men. a whole variety there. what happens when they re caught? a lot of these are kids, too. the penalty is not really stiff for people taking packages. it really depends on your record. but they are trying to get more creative how they try to stop this. we see people putting tracking devices on their package. this is big problem, and justbacking a growing problem and not sure what the answer is.