Burlington woman arrested in retail theft probe spanning Alamance, Guilford counties

Burlington police arrested a Burlington woman inside a TJ Maxx store off University Drive after a months-long investigation into retail larcenies that stretched into Guilford County and turned up cocaine, stolen merchandise and multiple outstanding warrants.

Police identified the suspect as Shanna Monica Gandy, 43, and said the probe began in August 2025 after several thefts at city businesses. Officers with the Burlington Police Department’s Aerial Reconnaissance and Tactical Intelligence Center, or ARCTIC, located Gandy near University Drive on May 2 and took her into custody inside the store.

A K-9 unit later alerted to Gandy’s vehicle, where officers found cocaine and stolen retail items, police said. Gandy now faces misdemeanor larceny, felony larceny, identity theft, possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of stolen property and several failure-to-appear warrants. She is being held at the Alamance County Detention Center without bond.

The case lands in the middle of a wider retail theft problem that has kept local and state investigators busy. North Carolina law defines organized retail theft as coordinated theft or possession of retail property taken for profit, including situations where someone conspires to steal retail goods or possesses stolen property while knowing, or having reason to know, it is stolen. The law is codified at N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-86.6 and was updated by the North Carolina General Assembly to take effect Dec. 1, 2024.

State crime data show why police have put more emphasis on this kind of enforcement. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation recorded 150,597 larceny offenses statewide in 2024, including 40,410 shoplifting offenses. In Alamance County alone, the SBI logged 2,658 larceny offenses that year, underscoring how frequently theft reaches local stores and the costs that follow for merchants and shoppers alike.

Burlington police chief Alan Balog has also highlighted ARCTIC as part of the department’s broader enforcement strategy. In a county where theft remains one of the largest property-crime categories, the Gandy arrest shows how quickly a retail complaint can grow into a cross-county case involving surveillance, warrants and drug charges, with local stores left to absorb the losses.