Serious organised crime gangs are recruiting vulnerable British children who are in care to create modern-day Fagin gangs to carry out shoplifting raids. The new ploy being deployed by ruthless gangsters follows the county lines methods used by drug dealers and is one of a series of methods being used by criminals as they target UK shops in ever-increasing numbers.
Children as young as 13 are being recruited by the gangs with offers of expensive designer trainers or a new tracksuit in return for carrying out regular raids to steal higher-end items such as champagne and whisky. And in Scotland one major gang is exploiting the free public transport available to young people to send children on out of town “robbing raids” – often travelling large distances from Glasgow to reach remote shops that are viewed as “easy pickings” because they have lesser levels of security than major city outlets.
The problem of vulnerable children being recruited by serious organised crime gangs is helping to fuel the £2.2bn shoplifting epidemic blighting Britain and leaving retailers in the depths of despair.
This week the Daily Express launched our Stop The Shoplifters crusade with a call to arms for increased action from police and politicians to crackdown on the national scourge.
Key to our campaign aim is a call for police forces nationwide to agree to attend in person all reports of shoplifting.
The British Retail Consortium says this would ensure that shop staff feel it is worthwhile reporting offences, whilst officers attendance would act as a visible deterrent to shoplifters who currently feel they are almost guaranteed to get away without punishment.
Kevin Burton of Kingdom Security which provides security for hundreds of shops, including major supermarkets and high-street retailers, said: “It’s ruthless. They are generally using children aged between 13 and 17 and they are looking at children who are in care, it’s pretty much like modern-day Fagin gangs.
“Fagin gang” refers to criminal groups led by an older figure who recruits and manipulates young people into committing crimes, often theft, in a manner reminiscent of the fictional Fagin from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. While Fagin’s gang in the novel was comprised of child pickpockets, the term is now used more broadly to describe any gang where a more experienced criminal “corrupts” younger individuals into criminal activity for their own benefit.
“They are using children because they know there is very little recourse for these kids who are already struggling in the system. They find kids not living with their parents, they might be in foster care or attending a pupil referral unit, kids that are already on a slippery path struggling with a system that’s trying its best to get them back.
“What the gangs do is they’ll recruit them and tell them to go into a shop and take all the champagne, or all these bottles of whiskey and go with your friends and then in return we’ll give you a designer tracksuit or a pair of Nike Air Max trainers. It costs the gangs a few pounds at most and the returns are huge.”
Kevin says the gangs view the children as little more than disposable commodities who they will just cast to one side if anything ever happens. It’s very much following the County Lines method of using vulnerable children to get as much out of them as they can.”
In the past year retailers have spent £1.8bn on security measures, but this along with the £2.2bn losses, is exacerbating the cost of living crisis by pushing up prices.
Lucy Whing, the crime policy adviser at the British Retail Consortium trade group, said police attendance at all shoplifting incidents that are flagged is key to reversing the trend.
She said: “Something has got to change. Retailers have spent £1.8billion on security measures last year and the Government has promised more resources to tackle the issue. The missing piece of the puzzle is a commitment from police forces to attend all incidents reported, particularly when violence is involved.”
Retailers think the Government’s £200million neighbourhood policing plan and moves to make assaulting a shopworker a stand-alone offence will help – but admit their trust in many forces is broken.
Shoplifting offences recorded in England and Wales last year topped 500,000 for the first time, with 530,643 offences logged – a 20% rise on the previous 12 months and the most since current recording practices began in 2002-2003.
Meanwhile more than one in 10 retail staff have been threatened with weapons in the past year as shoplifting turns increasingly violent.
