Police say that smash-and-grab robberies at Nordstrom, Louis Vuitton, and Best Buy were organized on social media by groups of people who had never met

• Police told WSJ that several recent mass robberies at retailers were organized on social media.
• This included thefts at Nordstrom, Louis Vuitton, and Best Buy stores in SF and Minneapolis.

Police say that several of the recent smash-and-grab robberies that took place in stores around San Francisco and Minneapolis were organized on social media apps by groups of people who had never met. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal Monday.

The incidents include the recent robbery of a Nordstrom store in Walnut Creek, California, a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco, and three separate Best Buy stores in a Minneapolis suburb. All the incidents took place in November.

Police investigating the incidents told the Journal that they took place after someone posted a target and time on social media but did not confirm how people find these posts.

A spate of smash-and-grab raids has plagued retailers in the US over the past few months, with large groups of people breaking into stores and stealing thousands of dollars of products in minutes. At the Nordstrom store in California, for example, thieves raided the store of over $100,000 of merchandise in one minute and left the scene in 25 separate cars.

Police said that the way in which the robberies are arranged makes it harder for them to find the perpetrators as many suspects won't actually know the names of who else was there, the Journal wrote.

"This isn't 'The Godfather' by any stretch," San Mateo district attorney Steve Wagstaffe told the Journal. "It's the modern version of 'Hey, there's a party tonight' and suddenly you have 100 kids showing up." Wagstaffe is part of a group of district attorneys that have come together to tackle organized retail crime in and around San Francisco.

According to the Journal, Snapchat was named as one of the platforms used to spread the word about these incidents.

Insider reached out to Snap for comment but did not immediately hear back. Snap spokeswoman Rachel Racusen told the Journal that the company has looked into the issue and has not found evidence of this happening on the app.