H.R. 2853, Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act of 2025

H.R. 2853 would establish a center within Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to coordinate federal law enforcement activities related to the organized theft of cargo, shipments, and goods, or the transport of counterfeit goods. Under the bill, the center would assist state and local law enforcement agencies with investigations, share information with relevant parties, and track trends related to those crimes. The authority for the center would terminate seven years after its creation.

The bill would require ICE to report annually to the Congress on the center’s activities. The bill also would require the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice to evaluate federal programs that provide grants, training, and technical support to state and local governments to assist in countering such crimes, and report to the Congress on their findings.

H.R. 2853 would create new criminal penalties for laundering money from the proceeds of selling or transporting stolen or counterfeit goods, or for using prepaid cards, gift certificates, and store gift cards to launder money. The bill also would create new criminal penalties for transporting, receiving, or selling stolen or counterfeit goods whose aggregate value is $5,000 or more in any 12-month period. Lastly, the bill would require federal courts to impose criminal forfeiture for the transportation or sale of stolen goods.

The estimated budgetary effects of the legislation are shown in Table 1. The costs of the legislation fall within budget function 750 (administration of justice).

Based on the costs of similar programs within ICE, such as the Intellectual Property Rights Center and the Center for Countering Human Trafficking, CBO estimates that the new center would cost about $20 million annually, primarily for personnel. Further, we expect that the bill’s reporting requirements would cost less than $500,000. On that basis, CBO estimates that implementing H.R. 2853 would cost $114 million over the 2026-2031 period, assuming appropriation of the necessary amounts.

CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 2853 would increase the receipt of both criminal penalties and forfeitures. Criminal penalties and forfeitures are recorded as revenues, deposited into the Crime Victims Fund and the government’s forfeiture funds, respectively, and later spent without further appropriation. Using data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission for similar offenses, CBO expects that only a small number of people would be subject to penalties or forfeiture under the bill. On that basis, CBO estimates that enacting H.R. 2853 would increase revenues and the consequent direct spending by less than $500,000 over the 2026-2036 period. The effect on the deficit would be negligible.

The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Jeremy Crimm. The estimate was reviewed by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy Director of Budget Analysis.