Prosecutors target over 200 'professional' shoplifters

Prosecutors have identified a network of more than 200 individuals behind shoplifting on an “industrial scale” in Scotland.
 
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) last night warned that "steal to order" shoplifting is being used as a means to funnel money back into serious organised crime groups.
 
An alert system is now in place that flags up to specialist prosecutors whenever one of more than 200 individuals with links to “organised shoplifting” – some of whom may be living outside of Scotland but target retailers here - has involvement with the police.
 
The intention is to then allow serious and organised crime charges to be brought over and above the original offence as well as open up opportunities to retrieve cash and assets via proceeds of crime legislation.
 
The details came to light as the Crown Office revealed assets worth more than £8.5m were recovered through proceeds of crime legislation in the last year, up by around £500,000 in 2013-14.
 
“It was clear that this was becoming another area of, basically organised criminality along, with all the other things that were going on, and it needed to be looked at as a criminal business by us because it was a criminal business by them,” Solicitor General Lesley Thomson QC told Holyrood.
 
“In other words, it’s group activity, it’s planned [and the] sole purpose is to make money which goes back into the organised crime group and importantly in most cases it was steal to order.”
 
Work around organised shoplifting has been brought under the Crown’s serious and organised crime division while a specialist Crown Counsel is now concentrating on this type of criminality wherever it happens across Scotland. 
 
Lindsey Miller, Procurator Fiscal for Organised Crime and Counter-Terrorism, said it had become a “national problem” with groups operating throughout the country and in partnership with one another.
 
“These 200-odd individuals are flagged on our system so anytime they are reported for any crime, it gets flagged up to our team so we know about it,” she added.
 
“We can start in gathering the reports and decide if we want to start rolling up cases – it’s not just one case in Stranraer, one case in Aberdeen, one case in Glasgow, we’ll roll them up and we’ll be able to present a picture of the crime group operating throughout Scotland.
 
“What that also does, from a proceeds of crime perspective, is we can establish what we call a lifestyle offence, so if you have four or more charges on a complaint or indictment where the aggregate amount of goods stolen, for example, is over £1,000 you can establish a lifestyle offence.
 
“That opens up the previous six years of their income for us to look at so it paints a very good picture to the court of the nature and extent of the criminality.”
 
Maxine Fraser, national operations director for Retailers Against Crime, said professional criminals who steal to order commit a “significant proportion” of crime reported to the body.
 
“Many have links to organised crime and are frequently involved in other criminal activities including drugs, firearms and fraud,” she said. “Mostly operating in teams of up to 20, these offenders travel throughout the UK and internationally committing crime which funds their lavish lifestyles.
 
“Although the majority of sentences handed down to those convicted of retail crime are minimal, recent successful proceeds of crime cases against those linked to organised crime are welcome news to retailers.
 
“With retailers working closely with the police and the Crown Office, more individuals may be targeted for proceeds of crime in the future.”
 
Assets worth a total of £8,589,368.88 were recovered through Proceeds of Crime actions between April 2014 and March this year.
 
A little over £4m was recovered through the courts from criminals’ illegal profits, and a further £4.5m of assets seized by civil recovery measures, from those who could not justify how their assets were obtained.