Jan 11, 2010

Criminals ‘winning the shoplifting war’By Samantha PolingNews.BBC.co.uk

I have investigated organised crime and those at the centre of it for years.

I have secretly filmed heroin traffickers and fraudsters and exposed gunmen and conmen – those who sit comfortably at the higher echelons of the criminally rich.

Two things have always struck me about these people.

The first is how they are able to make the amount of money they do. And the second, is why they choose to continue their life of criminality once they’ve made that money.

So when I set out to investigate the world of shoplifting, I was more than a little surprised by what I found.

Where it was once a petty crime committed by the desperate, shoplifting is now a multi-billion pound industry run by the gangland elite.

More than half of all shoplifting offences are now carried out by criminal gangs who operate professional and organised shoplifting teams.

Even though many of these gangs are already worth millions through other crimes, stealing remains part of their resume and a risk they’re willing to take.

Retail crime is at its highest level for a decade and enforcement agencies and retail investigators alike blame the gangs for this rise.

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