New figures suggest serious offenders continue targeting shops at scale despite police and industry efforts
Retailers across the UK were alerted almost 300,000 times that a known repeat offender had entered one of their stores during the first six months of 2026 alone, adding weight to growing police and industry concerns about the most prolific shoplifters.
Figures compiled from security firm Facewatch’s crime prevention network show 297,433 real-time warnings were issued between January and June, representing the number of times known offenders were positively identified by its live facial recognition technology.
June actually became Facewatch’s busiest month on record, with 57,111 alerts - surpassing the previous monthly high set just a month earlier in May (55,462 alerts).
The figures come as the Metropolitan Police continues to highlight the disproportionate impact of prolific offenders, saying a relatively small number of individuals are responsible for a significant amount of shoplifting and frequently continue offending despite repeated arrests and prosecutions.
Nick Fisher, CEO of Facewatch, said: “An alert isn’t a record of a crime that has already happened, it’s a vital opportunity for frontline shop workers to consider a safe response to prevent one.
“The same prolific offenders are continuing to target stores time and time again.”
“As more retailers adopt this technology, we’d naturally expect the number of alerts to grow because more stores are able to identify known offenders. But these figures also reinforce what police and the wider industry is saying - that the same prolific offenders are continuing to target stores time and time again.”
Facewatch recently announced the development of a Crime Management Platform, extending its crime prevention technology beyond in-store warnings and prevention to help retailers manage incidents and police reporting.
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