The mayor of London Sadiq Khan has pledged to step up the fight against retail crime after “years of budget cuts”.
Convenience Store and Khan were present at the Met’s largest ever crackdown on organised shoplifting gangs, Operation Zoridon which took place in October.
Speaking exclusively to Convenience Store, Khan said the police is “bearing down” on this area thanks to “record investment” from London City Hall.
He acknowledged that “years of budget cuts” had stretched the Met’s capacity and forced officers to prioritise crimes such as “homicides and serious violence against women and girls”.
Almost half of independent retailers in the UK said they no longer report incidents of shop theft, according to the British Independent Retail Associations’ (Bira) recent crime survey.
When asked by Convenience Store about retailers’ hesitancy to report crimes, Khan understood why it had reached this point.
“I share the concerns of retailers. Their perception is that when they’re the victims of crime, they don’t bother reporting it because in their experience when they report it nothing appears to happen,” said Khan.
“My message to them is that things will happen now, things have changed.”
The Met’s new strategy would target three areas of retail crime; shoplifters, those selling stolen goods and profiting organised crime groups, according to Khan.
“On previous walkabouts with neighbourhood policing teams, retailers have said they no longer report crimes because officers don’t do anything,” he said.
Khan explained the Met’s renewed focus was starting to make a difference.“Now, those officers will go to their station, look at their database and facial recognition and then issue arrests,” he said.
”We’ll continue working with the Met to tackle the crimes of most concern to Londoners as we build a safer London for everyone.”
In a bid to help retailers thrive this golden quarter instead of battling shop theft, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) is working closely with the Met’s specialist business crime team to crack down on retail crime, said Khan.
The mayor urged retailers not to give up on reporting: “Please report it whether it is £5 or £100 because unless you measure it, we don’t know how bad things are.”
No comments yet