Analysis of Stolen Goods Markets in the UK dR kATE tUDOR, dURHAM uNIVERSITY

First Published: 2023

Researcher contact details:

E: kate.tudor@durham.ac.uk

Project Team: Dr Kate Tudor, PC Liam Tovey, Chief Inspector Hannah Lawton and ACC Tom Harding.

With special thanks to Superintendent David Cain, Ministry of Justice.

Background to the Research

In recognition of the impact that crime has upon communities, the government’s 2021 Beating Crime Plan made a commitment to tackling neighbourhood crime. Under the plan, the government set an objective to reduce volume acquisitive crimes which are understood to affect particular geographic locales disproportionately and significantly undermine the quality of life of those living within them. As part of this work, the Home Office has commissioned several projects which seek to establish a greater understanding of stolen goods markets in the UK, and the current work contributes to this broader undertaking. This workstream is built on the recognition that profit-seeking is the primary motivation for acquisitive criminality and thus the identification of, and intervention in, routes to the realisation of profit must play an essential role in tackling this area of criminality. Building on the initial scoping project carried out by Gwent Police, the current project seeks to establish a greater understanding of the commodities stolen in UK neighbourhood acquisitive crime, and the markets associated with their disposal.

Reflecting the priorities of the government’s ‘Beating Crime Plan’, the present analysis of stolen goods markets focuses on bulk acquisitive offences which affect citizens in the context of their private lives. The work therefore considers data in relation to residential burglary, theft from the person, personal robbery, theft of a motor vehicle (TOMV) and theft from a motor vehicle (TFMV).

The Offenders and their M.O.s

All of the offenders in the study were male, and all had significant and sustained criminal histories. They were, without exception, drawn from disadvantaged backgrounds, though the degree of deprivation they had experienced varied markedly. A significant number discussed their experience of broken homes, the care system, the loss of family members and homelessness. At the time of interview, a number of respondents occupied incredibly precarious positions whereby they did not have access to suitable accommodation, and they felt at significant risk of reoffending. Drug use was also a significant factor underpinning the criminality of the men in the study. Many reported being heavily addicted to heroin and cocaine and their addiction was described as being a catalyst for their offences. Others discussed the way in which they often would commit crimes under the influence of drugs or would use the profits from their offences to ‘party’ for prolonged periods.

Interviewer: ‘Would you say your crimes were mainly driven by the need to buy drugs, then?’

Respondent: ‘Every single one of them… Sometimes, I’d... in fact, sometimes I didn’t even need to go and burgle the houses. I remember one, I burgled a house before with £300 in my pocket and (inaudible) for crack and brown, so there was no need for me to do it, it’s just that... yeah I used to do it like a job, for drugs.’

Drug use was a dominant theme throughout interviews. Those with significant drug addictions described the need to expedite the process of selling stolen goods. They reported going directly from an offence to a local handler to sell goods and this money was used immediately to buy drugs:

Respondent: ‘Because if I saw money all I saw was drugs. If money went in my hands, it wouldn’t be there, it would be gone as quick as it came. I mean as soon as it goes in my pocket or my hand, I’m making a phone call for drugs.’

This was representative of the experiences of the more chaotic, less professional, acquisitive offenders who tended to have fairly serious drug addictions. They all reported selling goods as soon after their crimes as possible.

Interviewer: ‘So would you sell the things you stole immediately, or would you hide them somewhere for a while?’

Respondent: ‘No, I’d always get rid as soon as, straight away, like. I’d take the stuff straight from doing over a house, go right there. You don’t want to be hanging around with stuff. The police know it isn’t yours. Knows it ain’t legit. You want it out as soon as possible. You can’t take it home, so you sell it straight away. Night times weren’t as easy. Night meant you had to take them to certain people, you can’t just walk into a shop then, can you?’

In some cases, goods were directly exchanged for drugs, but this was something that people tried to avoid because of the derisory offers drug dealers would make for items. Those who were addicted to drugs were far more likely report being offered what they considered to be unreasonably low prices for the items they sold. Their addictions, in short, made them easily exploitable. Their desire to realise profit immediately also made them vulnerable to being caught, as the respondent below explains:

Respondent: ‘You find with addicts they do the same thing, the same time every day, the same thing, smoking, smoking, stealing, smoking, it’s just the same circle. Smoking, stealing, selling, smoking, stealing. I mean they start looking like a tramp, withdrawn, you’re not of sound mind, you’re going off the scale so there is no [point] in living with the way people think and how to (inaudible) as an addict, they just go around, they don’t care who they sell it to… Yeah one time it got me caught by going into a shop with CCTV. Because I done a burglary, went across the road to a shop and was trying to sell the stuff in there… Straightaway. Heart was racing. Need to use. And I’m, I’ve got stuff and I don’t know where to go with it so I’m just going round asking do you want, do you want. And just keeping going around until you find, because somebody comes along and goes do you know what alright I’ll give you 30 pounds for it and you think it could be worth god knows how much but you take it because you’ve been trying to sell it for the last god knows how long and you don’t want to have it round you, because you don’t want to get nicked with it.’

The social networks associated with drug sales appeared to play a significant role in facilitating acquisitive crime and the subsequent sale of goods. Local drugs networks were described by the vast majority of respondents as being pivotal to their involvement in acquisitive offending. In some cases, local drug dealers were heavily involved in handling stolen goods or were crucial to establishing connections between thieves and buyers. In others, drug dealers were directly involved in commissioning crime by providing taskings for TOMV offences. Consequently, there appeared to be considerable overlap between nominals involved in drug supply and those involved in the movement of stolen goods.

Respondents whose offending tended to be more carefully planned and professional and who did not report having significant drug addictions, also reported regularly using handlers who were also simultaneously involved in drug supply. However, these transactions tended to be less exploitative than those detailed above. Moreover, the offenders in this latter group tended to behave very differently to those with heavy addictions when disposing of stolen goods. As they were not driven by the desperation to service drug habits, they tended to be more methodical in their disposal of goods, taking more time over the separation of goods and, in some cases, storing goods for sale at a later date. This was, of course, dependent on having access to storage facilities, but a number of respondents described doing so in order to make bulk sales or to target particular types of buyers in a strategic manner.

Interviewer: ‘You just mentioned there you would sell a load of stuff together, so is it fair to say that you sell things in bulk, you don’t do it individually?’

Respondent: ‘It depends how much I had. I mean, obviously, sometimes I’d have a fair bit, and I’d probably do the main things first, so if they get a couple of grand straightaway, then I’d hold back. Obviously, I’d go off, go and use drugs, go and book into a hotel or whatever, have a bit of a party for a week or two, then you’re sort of gradually over a period of weeks, you’ll start taking the other bits in to slowly... on a slowly basis. I wouldn’t do it normally all in one go…I’d put it somewhere else. Somewhere just...Not at an address known to police for me.... you’d have to be a bit smart about it.’

Another respondent described his involvement with a goods buyer who would only make bulk purchases:

Respondent: ‘Well, he was just this bloke that we knew through [Gary] who we bought most of our smoke off, yeah? Introduced us, yeah. ‘Cos he knew we were grafting and had stuff to shift. He knew we were good for it, he could take stuff for us. Move it without doubt. He was well set up for it, [Pete]. But he didn’t mess about. Like I said, he’d only come if it was worth his interest. If we had enough. So, we had to wait til we’d done loads of jobs and we got enough to call him, for him to come over. ‘Cos I think he doesn’t come from round here.’

Interviewer: ‘So how much would you need to have to call [Pete]?’

Respondent: ‘Well, he liked bikes. That’s why we started using the garage. A f*cking nightmare, bikes. You know? So we would have a load of bikes waiting. But he liked good ones, mountain ones. Didn’t p*ss about with any old crap. He’d take some electrics. We’d laugh about that sh*t. Like kitchen stuff. We never offered him the jewellery, though. I dunno, for him, mores the better. Like ten, twelve bikes a tonne of electrics, DIY stuff, garden stuff like strimmers and that, like gardening stuff.’

The respondents and their acquisitive offences were embedded in well-established networks of informal relationships which are pivotal to understanding the movement of stolen goods associated with neighbourhood crimes. This network was described by one man as ‘an underworld’ which is ‘a mixture of high street businesses and people just on the street’ where people operate ‘in the same little circles’ and business tends not to ‘go outside the circle’. In the accounts of all respondents, high street businesses played a pivotal role in allowing them to realise profits from their acquisitive crimes. These businesses involved outlets such as ‘cash for gold’ services, second-hand, or pawn, shops and independent jewellers and these were central to ensuring the profitability of offending. Respondents were cognisant of the changes in regulations which governed financial exchanges in these settings. They discussed the introduction of the requirement to show ID when selling goods, or of the increasing presence of CCTV systems in shops. Some were uncomfortable about the implications of these changes and tried to circumvent the associated risks by ‘sub-contracting’ the sale process to someone further down the criminal hierarchy, most often a local addict or young person. Others suggested that often, those in shops were willing to bypass the need for ID or were willing to record false names against sales. On occasion, respondents were already members of second-hand stores and they merely continued to present with goods without being flagged as suspicious, underscoring the need for better police engagement with this type of commercial outlet.

The vast majority of respondents lacked the skills and confidence to engage with internet sales. Participation in online selling was limited to those involved in the theft of tools and bicycles. Eleven of those who stole tools from vehicles reported using a range of websites to sell their goods. Online sales allowed TFMV offenders to almost professionalise their activities, with one offender commenting that he ran ‘a pretty impressive tool business.’ On account of the anonymity they afforded, and the geographically dispersed markets to which they offered access, online sales platforms were unique in the way that they offered offenders a veneer of legitimacy. Only six people reported selling bikes online. Some of this engagement was fairly limited, with only two suggesting that their experience mirrored that of the TFMV offenders who had established 'successful online tool outlets'. However, one of the main barriers to being able to sell large numbers of bicycles online was the issue of storage. As many respondents lacked access to storage facilities, bikes often took an indirect route to online sales platforms, passing first through the hands of a third party. Many of those who stole bikes, sold to handlers who specialised in bicycles and who were known to sell them online in high volumes. Thus, the number of respondents who had capitalised directly on the growth of online marketplaces remained fairly limited and confined to the specific commodity markets of tools and bicycles. However, many others also indirectly serviced online sales by selling to a third party.

Conversely, the respondents appeared to be much more responsive to wider technological changes when selecting targets for theft. They described the way in which the commodities they favoured altered over the course of their criminal careers in response to changes in market demand. When asked about the types of property he would target, one respondent said:

Respondent: ‘Anything that I can get rid of, I will take.’

Interviewer: ‘Okay. And is there anything that you can’t get rid of? Anything that is a real pain to get rid of?’

Respondent: ‘The things are just, value of things have gone right down. Like years ago, TV will be, TV and (inaudible) and videos and DVD players and stuff like that would, when they first came out those things were valuable but now these things are no longer valuable…Because they’re so cheap to make that the price of a brand new TV now cost less than what it did when you was buying it second hand back in the days. You can’t get rid of these things now. When it comes to things like yeah TV and videos and all that kind of stuff, nobody’s interested in it. It’s just the main things that have got value like jewellery and credit cards.’

All of the accounts offered by respondents indicated a shift away from electrical items as their resale value decreased markedly over time, but this shift was also influenced by the increasing complexity associated with new forms of security on items such as phones, laptops and tablets which were perceived by thieves to engender greater risk. Their ability to deal in these commodities was dependent on their access to networks of people with specific skill sets in unlocking devices. Alternatively, the need for devices to service demand in the repair market allowed some individuals to sell devices to local repair shops and kiosks. The shift away from the theft of large electrical items also significantly altered the M.O.’s associated with burglary. As the respondents moved from handling large electrical items in their earlier careers, to focusing on the theft of items such as jewellery, car keys, cash and bank cards, the task of burglary became much more streamlined and straightforward. Recounting his involvement in an early burglary which involved the theft of multiple television sets and other electrical items, one interviewee said:

Respondent: ‘I burgled a house, took stuff, dropped it off somewhere, and then gone back to take more stuff because I’m on my own.’

The choice to work alone thus required the burglar to make multiple trips to collect goods, thus significantly increasing the risks associated with the offence. The difficulty of handling such items was described by another as something which often necessitated working with others:

Respondent: ‘It was a head f*ck working back then, you couldn’t carry the stuff, always needed to work with someone. Me and [Derek] worked, us together, back then and then we’d have someone drive sometimes. It weren’t clean. When everyone wanted tellies, HIFIs, a proper chew on shifting that stuff… could never done it just as me, on me own, like. Always needed a car.’

This experience was contrasted in his account with his experience of contemporary burglaries which focused on cash, jewellery and car keys:

Respondent: ‘It’s much quicker, man. Nothing to carry. Just a bag. In and out.’

Thus, as targeted commodities have become smaller and more portable over time, the speed and ease with which respondents were able to execute burglaries has increased immeasurably. Not only has the need for multiple trips to carry large items diminished, the need the need to negotiate the storage and transportation of these goods has disappeared, allowing offenders to work alone, on foot and with much less effort.

The criminal careers of the men in the study appeared to develop over time, with most reporting involvement in a range of acquisitive offences. It seemed that for many TFMV offences operated as form of gateway offence into what were deemed to be more serious, risky and lucrative crimes such as burglary and robbery.

Interviewer: ‘Your involvement in theft from vehicles, that’s…further in the past?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah, definitely… yeah. That was like from a young... basically, my older brothers kind of put me onto that. It was their thing when they was our age, sort of thirteen, fourteen, they would give us a particular area to go to which they know was safe because normally it would be handbags or where people would walk their dogs and things like that, so it’s a lot of in Hampstead area kind of thing around there where the people would park up their cars, normally leave a handbag, or you’d look around that area ‘cos it was a more, more of an affluent area where people there was more money.’

Interviewer: ‘Okay…What about the burglaries then, is that more recent?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah, burglaries is more probably... yeah, yeah, more recent for me, yeah. I didn’t move onto that ‘til later… ‘til I had a bit more behind me’.

There was a shared belief between the men in the study that burglaries and TOMV offences required a higher level of skill than taking items from vehicles, and they observed that these more demanding crimes were often accompanied by greater rewards. Consequently, graduation to these offences tended to come slightly later in the careers of the participants. Finally, a proportion of the acquisitive crimes perpetrated by the men in the study involved taskings from third parties and participation in these ‘thefts to order’ often lubricated the transition from TFMV into TOMV offences. The people who tasked respondents with the theft of vehicles were described as being those to whom they had sold items from previous TFMV offences. Interestingly, participation in these tasked TOMV offences tended to generate similar financial returns as when offenders stole vehicles and sold them independently. They also appeared to be the point at which neighbourhood offenders came into closest contact with organised crime as those to whom they delivered the cars were able to process significant numbers of vehicles in short time periods.

Personal Accessories, Cash and Cards: Offender Perspectives

Given that across all offence types, the realisation of financial returns from stolen commodities drove engagement in acquisitive crime, it comes as no surprise that cash was universally described as being the most desirable target for respondents. Stealing money allowed thieves to generate profits without the effort and risks associated with selling stolen goods. For this reason, the theft of cash drove a significant number of offences and seemed to be particularly appealing to those who sought to generate money to fund drug habits. Consequently, every single respondent in the research stated that cash would always be their priority in any offence and interviewees suggested that the dominance of personal accessories in stolen property data may be attributable to offenders’ desire to steal money. For the respondents, cash had the added advantage of being untraceable and therefore very unlikely to lead to their incrimination. During interview, respondents repeatedly suggested that wallets, handbags and rucksacks would be stolen in the belief that they contained money, but that they had no intrinsic value in themselves, often being disposed of immediately after the event. The frequency with which this was stated indicates the possibility that the primacy of personal accessories in stolen property data may be somewhat misleading. This was true across all four offence categories which involved the theft of property. Discussing his involvement in burglary, one interviewee said:

Respondent: ‘It would be the night-time jobs when you’d get the bags and the wallets, cos that’s when people were in. So that meant it was messy… You had to be fast. You would always want a wallet for the money and some jobs you have time to look through it… to get the cash… not very much because people are about and you need to get out…so you just grab a bag and go and deal with it later, sometimes you can find the purse or whatever but … like I say it was messy at night and you’d just dump the bag wherever and keep the money… whatever there was like.’

Similar decision-making processes were reported by those involved in TFMV offences. Perpetrators described balancing the need to obtain goods and leave the site of the vehicle in the shortest time possible, with the desire to dispose of incriminating goods as quickly as possible. This meant that they might search a bag quickly for a purse or a wallet but wait to remove money or cards once they had moved away from the vehicle. The accounts offered by two respondents below provide examples:

Respondent: ‘Not when you are on gear, mind. Gear makes you… well you don’t care. You think you are [inaudible]… you think you are f*cking Superman… but when you think straight, you don’t want to hang round, you want to be away. Get the wallet and off… worry about the money well, down… off … you look about that later.’

Respondent: ‘I just stuck the bags in the bin, a bush, like, a… you know, like a…you know those big bins at shops? Something like that. I don’t want that [the bag]. I don’t want to have that with me. So, I take whatever is in it. A bag, it’d be money, cards, maybe something like shades but not really, money probably, a wallet, you know.’

Very few of those who participated in the research admitted having involvement in robbery offences. The veracity of their claims could not be verified but there appeared to be some stigma associated with admitting this offence among respondents and this may explain the low rates of robbery that were reported during interviews. The nine respondents who did declare their involvement in robbery all suggested that obtaining cash would be their priority in any offence. During robberies, wallets, bags and cash were always the primary targets as they were described as providing the best returns but were also the quickest to obtain. Again, bags and wallets tended to be quickly disposed of once the cash they contained had been removed. Thus, while the theft of cash is not associated with any form of stolen goods market, it appears that it is a driver of a significant number of neighbourhood acquisitive crimes and moreover, the theft of cash also appears to account for the dominance of personal accessories in police stolen property data.

The only exception to this rule appeared to relate to earphones. In police data, earphones were classified under both personal accessories and electrical equipment. Earphones, and in particular Apple Bluetooth earphones, were deemed to be an extremely desirable commodity in TFMV, TPTP and burglary offences. Their resale value and portability were something that was understood to make them a current ‘hot product’ and respondents reported always being able to sell these on through local informal direct sales or to local ‘tech kiosks’ with whom they did business.

Tools and Machinery: Offender Perspectives

All but four of the offenders interviewed in the research had experience of stealing tools and machinery in either TFMV or burglary offences. All of those who had taken tools from vehicles described them as being highly desirable commodities which almost always tended to be specifically targeted in advance. Offenders belonging to this group tended to target vans in the knowledge that they were likely to contain tools and went equipped with both tools for their liberation and means for their onward transportation. The appeal of tools, for these respondents, related to the consistency of their market demand as they were always able to realise profits from them. Not only were tools consistently saleable, they also tended to generate what offenders deemed to be ‘fair prices’, meaning that they were usually able to achieve market value in their subsequent sale of goods. This was something which distinguished tools from other commodities for those involved in TFMV offences. On this subject, one interviewee said:

Respondent: ‘You want to go for tools, man. Tools are always good for money. We did vans for a long time, bruh.’

Interviewer: ‘Why was that?’

Respondent: ‘You could never not sell that stuff. Someone always wanted it. We was selling it everywhere. We couldn’t get enough.’

Interviewer: ‘Was that unusual?’

Respondent: ‘Not unusual for [tools], they always wanted that stuff. But other stuff, you can get stuck with, if you know what I’m saying.’

Interviewer: ‘So, are tools a good money-maker? How much do you get for them?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah, man. People pay good money for tools. They need that sh*t, so they’s willing to pay for it, do you get me? You don’t get ripped off for tools like you do with other stuff.’

Interviewer: ‘Why not? Why are tools different to what we discussed before?’

Respondent: ‘’cus you don’t have to deal with those people from those f*cking shops that are always having your life, trying to knock you down… trying to say we can’t take this ‘cus it ain't legit, ‘cus it’s got this, it’s got that… no-one wants ‘em… you know? You don’t bother with that stuff, man.’

Interviewer: ‘Okay, great. So, if you don’t take them to those places, what will you do with tools once you’ve stolen them, then?’

Respondent: ‘Sell ‘em. Straight off. Sell ‘em.’

Interviewer: ‘Where?’

Respondent: ‘Other builders. They always want them. They are bad for that. They don’t give a f*ck where they come from. They would never ask that. Never ask no questions.’

Interviewer: ‘So where do you find these builders to sell to?’

Respondent: ‘Online, in the pub, round our way, anywhere, people always buy ‘em and they buy ‘em at a fair price, none of this rip-off sh*t, man… oh my days…you get proper prices for ‘em.’

The account of the disposal routes associated with tools from TFMV offences offered above was fairly representative of those interviewed. The vast majority of people interviewed had experience of selling tools via local informal networks and reported that those working in the construction industry made up the vast majority of their customer base. Some sold in local pubs, via acquaintances, or sometimes in local car boot sales and markets. All accounts of these informal sales networks detailed the way in which local tradespeople provided a constant source of demand for their stolen tools. Furthermore, a significant proportion of those stealing tools in TFMV offences used online sales platforms to move equipment, citing a range of different outlets in their accounts. Again, when selling tools online, the respondents suggested that tradespeople constituted the vast majority, if not all, of their custom. They also suggested they often created seller profiles which inferred that they too were tradespeople, but many said that this was often not necessary as buyers were fundamentally unconcerned with this level of detail. In their accounts of selling tools online, respondents most frequently cited using Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree to list goods. There appeared to be a common belief that there were less stringent requirements when listing items and that the platforms allowed local markets to be served with relative ease. The fact that fees were not incurred for selling items was also considered desirable to respondents. Others used Ebay to advertise their goods and suggested that this was often preferable when selling tools with distinguishing features as those buying the goods tended to be more geographically dispersed. Cash on collection was preferred by all respondents as a means of payment but postal services were also routinely offered for goods.

Those involved in tool thefts from vehicles tended to be significantly more organised and successful than those who stole tools in burglary offences. The respondents involved in the theft of tools from vehicles tended to be fairly skilled and knowledgeable. These types of tool thefts tended form an established pattern of criminal behaviour that was both planned and replicated on a regular basis. Those involved regularly sold tools in significant quantities, were knowledgeable about their value and were at ease using online sales platforms. Selling tools, for this group offenders, was approached as a business. Mirroring transformations in contemporary drug markets, the interaction with online sales environments for those selling stolen tools has meant that part of their criminal practice has become transformed by the dictates of capitalist enterprise as they become concerned with issues such as offering good customer service and obtaining positive buyer reviews.

Respondent: ‘People always want to buy tools and we always had them. We got [laughs] reviews. Good ones. And it sounds funny now, but it was important, you see. I mean we were selling a lot. So we ended up using a few accounts, but we could always shift them. People would turn up and full-on conversations about work [laughs] and we would be like ‘yeah, yeah, yeah, I know’, or they would ask loads of questions about them and using them on messages. They just thought you did the same, I guess. So we ran with it and people loved it… Would say we were top-fellas on the feedback.’

Among those who reported involvement in TFMV offences there were a smaller number whose criminality tended to be more chaotic and highly opportunistic, and these offenders tended to be less sophisticated. They tended to carry out impulsive ‘smash and grab’ thefts. Inevitably these thefts were less likely to generate significant sums of money as they often relied on offenders carrying items away from the crime location. For this second subset of TFMV offenders, tools tended to be sold to local handlers to generate money for drugs, or in some cases were able to be exchanged directly for drugs. The desperation of these offenders to realise profit from the tools they stole inevitably meant that the amount they were paid for tools was often significantly under market value. To a certain extent, this tended to be mirrored among respondents engaged in burglary offences to steal tools. As mentioned above, among the burglars who participated in the study, there appeared to be two groups: the more successful burglars who made calculated assessments about targets, who focused on the theft of cash, jewellery and car keys, and those more erratic nominals who would steal anything. The latter group tended to share characteristics with the smash and grab TFMV offenders insofar as they often had significant drug habits and were drawn from backgrounds of significant deprivation. Thus, the experience of selling tools for this group was very different to that of the more organised and business-like TFMV tool thieves. They tended to rely heavily on the presence of local fences and drug dealers who often offered exploitative amounts for goods. Discussing this issue, one respondent said:

Respondent: ‘Aye, I took tools. A canny few, really.’

Interviewer: ‘Were they easy to sell?’

Respondent: ‘Aye… well nah. Well both really. They’d take them, but they’d take the p*ss.’

Interviewer: ‘What do you mean?’

Respondent: ‘The money that they’d give you, I mean, it took the p*ss. They knew the’ could, so they did.’

Interviewer: ‘So what are we talking here? How much would you get if you took…say, I dunno… a drill?’

Respondent: ‘A drill? I dunno. They would always have a laugh… they’d say… ‘ah nah. I’m not havin’ that. No way. I’ve already got loads of them’, or ‘No one wants them these days. I can’t sell them’, all just so they could rip the p*ss out of you. And you can’t say nowt ‘cos you need the money. So you’d end up taking twenty for a drill that is worth loads… See I had this f*ckin’ massive Stihl saw. You know? Aye? Massive thing. I took it round [Dave’s] house. He absolutely did me over then. Do you know how much those things are worth?’

Interviewer: ‘Errr… I don’t know. I guess it is hundreds?’

Respondent: ‘Exactly. Hundreds. Five at least. Five. Fifty quid. Fifty quid. He gave ‘us fifty quid for a Stihl saw. Fifty.’

Interviewer: ‘If you thought it was that cheap, why did you take it?’

Respondent: '[laughs] Drugs, man. So I could get me drugs. I didn’t care, I just wanted rid of it. He went on about it being hard to shift, said I was taking the p*ss by taking stuff that had a name on it… I mean I’d scrubbed at that already, he was just… he knew he could… they know…if you use, they can give you what they want. It’s just the way it is.’

In the interview excerpt above, respondent one alludes to the fact that the presence of marking pen on the Stihl saw offered the handler with whom he did business the opportunity to offer him a derisory price. This issue was raised numerous times in interviews as respondents often suggested that local handlers often used marking on tools as the rationale to reduce the prices they offered to thieves. As a result, a number of respondents detailed the way in which they would try to scrub identifying features from tools before attempting to sell them with varying degrees of success. The use of marking pens to identify tools appeared to present much less of an issue for those selling tools online as they tended to advertise tools with identifying features hidden from view, but they suggested that ultimately, buyers were unconcerned by the presence of names or markings on tools. Summarising this position, one of the men said:

Respondent: ‘Sure, some of them [tools] were marked up… had people’s names on.. that kind of thing.’

Interviewer: ‘And did that bother you? Could you still sell them? Did you have to try and remove the markings?’

Respondent: ‘People put their name on things. That’s what they do, don’t they? I mean sometimes we’d try… but those pens ain’t meant to come off and no one is bothered. No one is gonna ask about the name when they buy it, are they? They just buy it and don’t ask. I wasn’t gonna waste time tryin’… you know. You just wouldn’t put it up there in everyone’s faces in the advert.’

Interviewer: ‘So names on tools didn’t cause an issue?’

Respondent: ‘Nah, man. They were trade, buying. So, they probably did too [put their name on their tools]. It’s normal.’

Throughout the research, it was evident that significant links exist between the theft of tools and the construction industry. Not only are tradespeople regularly targeted by thieves, but they also appear to drive the demand for stolen goods by a significant degree. The location of the trade for stolen tools within the construction industry also appears to offer practical benefits which serve to facilitate and sustain the profitability of this form of criminal enterprise. In the first instance, it ensures that a constant demand for stolen goods exists, as tradespeople buy stolen tools through informal networks, at local sales and online. In the second, the ostensible churn of tools within this industry offers offenders credibility when selling tools as they are able to claim also to be tradespeople and this allows them to sell items in larger volumes without attracting attention.

Interviewer: ‘Do you sell tools individually or several at the same time when selling them online?’

Respondent: ‘That’s the thing about online, you can sell ‘em all at once. With shops people are going to ask questions if you turn up with them. Online, no one knows, you can be upgrading to battery, moving to another brand, moving to another job, anything, you know. You can list them on different shops, mix it up a bit, between different people, anything but sometimes it’s okay to have a good few for sale because there’s reasons for it, like. Not crime, not burglary jobs, not vans, reasons. Real ones. Like people do.’

Interviewer: ‘So would you include those reasons in your advert?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes we would something like ‘moving to another brand or whatever, or giving up on trade something, but really you don’t need to, not really. People just don’t care.’

Mobile Phones

Findings:

During the period 2018-2021, mobile phones were the third most frequently stolen item across the five neighbourhood offence types. By a significant margin, the vast majority stolen mobile phones were recorded against theft from the person offences. For the entire period 2018-2021, theft from the person offences accounted for 55% of all stolen mobile phones reported to the research. After theft from the person, robbery was the second most closely associated offence with the theft of mobile phones, accounting for 22% of phones reported as stolen to the research in the four-year period. The proportion of mobile phones stolen in other offences was much smaller with 12.5% associated with TFMV offences and 10.5% relating to residential burglaries. Whilst the absolute number of phones recorded as stolen has fluctuated over time in line with wider changes in crime rate, the distribution of stolen phones by offence type has remained largely stable over time. Nevertheless, between 2018 and 2021, there was an increase from 51% to 61% in the proportion of mobile phones recorded as stolen in the research which were attributable to the theft from the person offences. Across the same period, the figure associated with personal robbery offences reduced very slightly from 22% to 19.5%.

Mobile Phones: Offender Perspectives

In the police data provided to the study, mobile phones were the commodity type most frequently reported as stolen in personal robbery and TFTP offences. Across all offence types, mobile phones ranked as the fourth most frequently stolen form of commodity. In short, they form a very significant proportion of all stolen property in neighbourhood acquisitive crimes. However, this was not reflected in the interview data collected with offenders. Whilst respondents had stolen significant numbers of mobile phones in the past, they felt that developments in technology now precluded many of them from doing so. Mobile phones were not something they felt confident in taking because they had neither the skills nor the contacts to make onward sales. There were three exceptions to this rule, but these respondents sold phones to local phone kiosks/ technology shops which were then subsequently broken down for parts. One respondent described his relationship with a local phone shop owner:

Respondent: ‘Well, nowadays actually, I have... I do know a guy that will buy stolen phones because he’ll use all the spares and repairs. You know, like if you break your iPhone 14 screen, to get that fixed, you’re looking at good 250 quid, aren’t you?... When I put... when, like say, the guy in the shop, he’ll just use a stolen phone screen, because you can’t unlock an iPhone, but if you’ve got a stolen iPhone 14, now yeah, you can’t use it again, but you can use the battery and the charger port, you can sell it for parts.’

Interviewer: ‘Right, and what kind of person is that?’

Respondent: ‘This guy’s got a shop. He started on the market, and now he’s got a shop that sells every phone you can imagine, laptops. He fixes them, screen replacements. Because I used to break my screen on a weekly basis, and this is how I got to meet him. Then, I found an iPhone and in fact, it was only iPhone... I think it was a 13... is it a 14 now?'

Interviewer: ‘Oh, I’ve no idea. I’m totally out of touch.’

Respondent: ‘…so I turned it off, went in his shop, and went, “Yo, look, I just found this,” and he goes, “Oh, it’s worth nothing,” and I went, “You lying b*stard,” because I’m pretty clever like that. I’m like, “What, you telling me the screen’s not worth £150 to you, and the battery’s not worth £150 to you?” and he’s got, had a little grin and I went, “Give us 50 quid and you can have it.” To him that’s 300 quid.’

Interviewer: ‘Right, so is that how much you would get for a phone, then, about 50 quid?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah, you wouldn’t get a lot because they’ve got to do a bit of work to get their money.'

This account was representative of the experiences of the three respondents who still stole phones. They all sold them to similar types of contacts in the belief that they would be broken down for spare parts. None of these respondents stole mobile phones in significant quantities. It seems therefore, that mobile phone theft and its attendant burgeoning second-hand market more closely relates to more organised criminality. Interviews with police forces and data obtained from local forces and ROCUs appear to corroborate this picture. Within this data numerous OCGs and Priority Individuals are flagged for their involvement in organised robbery offences involving the theft of mobile phones. Increasing levels of security on mobile phones appears to have pushed mobile phone theft into the more organised end of the criminal spectrum. Several organised crime groups specialising in mobile phone robberies were identified in police data with several being known to operate across multiple force areas. In police interviews, GMP’s Cheetham Hill was identified as receiving significant flows of stolen goods from across multiple force areas, including mobile phones from organised theft groups. Cheetham Hill is currently the focus of an extensive multi-agency operation to address the significant social and economic issues in the area, including GMP’s Op Vulcan which seeks to intervene in the presence of extensive and well-established illicit trade networks in the locality. Inevitably, this means that these particular trading networks will disperse geographically and mapping the movement of these activities, in conjunction with efforts to map the presence of similar geographical hubs across other force areas, ought to form the basis of future research.

Jewellery

Findings:

The theft of jewellery is overwhelmingly an issue associated with residential burglaries. Across the entire four-year period, 84.5% of all pieces of jewellery recorded as stolen in the research were attributable to residential burglaries. Of the remaining pieces of jewellery in the research, 7.3% were stolen in personal robberies, 5.3% in thefts from vehicles and the remaining 2.9% were attributable to thefts from the person. Again, reflecting the declining crime rates during the period under consideration, and especially in relation to burglary, the number of pieces of jewellery stolen per year declines steadily and significantly over time. Throughout this entire period, the dominance of burglary offences in jewellery theft data remains unchanged with 80.3% of all stolen jewellery being associated with residential burglaries in 2018 and 79% in 2021.

Jewellery: Offender Perspectives

Reflecting the findings from the first phase of the research, jewellery was by far the most desirable commodity for residential burglars in the study. Jewellery was valued on account of its high market-demand, the ease with which it could be hidden and transported, and the ease with which it could be sold. Such was the enthusiasm for jewellery that one respondent remarked:

Respondent: ‘If I was to get back into it now, I would only steal jewellery.’

Interviewer: ‘Right. Why is that then? Can you explain that to me?’

Respondent: ‘It’s high value… Yes. Any mother*cker will buy that sh*t.’

More successful burglars described making very deliberate decisions about their target selection and these decisions were based on assessments of the potential returns they could make. For this subset of offenders, successfully executing a two-in-one Hanoi burglary whilst also taking jewellery was the ideal outcome.

Interviewer: ‘Would you be able to talk me through what you would target in a burglary? What kind items would you go for?’

Respondent: ‘Jewellery or cars… that’s what makes the money.’

Interviewer: ‘Right so, you’re doing two in one burglaries for the keys, then?'

Respondent: ‘Yeah, keys and jewellery yeah.’

All respondents shared this enthusiasm for jewellery and offered the same explanation for its desirability. All suggested that jewellery, and particularly gold, was very easy to sell. After stealing jewellery, offenders described going through a ‘sorting process’ whereby they would categorise pieces according to their estimated value and this would determine how they sought to sell it on. Cheap jewellery tended to be offered to local fences in the first instance in the knowledge that it was unlikely to generate any meaningful profits in commercial outlets. For less desirable gold items, respondents described using local market stalls which advertised gold-buying services. These outlets were understood to represent disposal routes which were straightforward to use and which very rarely asked questions of those who utilised their services. Pawn shops, cash-4-gold services and second-hand shops were understood to involve a layer of additional complexity as they often required the presentation of photographic ID. In some cases, respondents sometimes used third parties, usually local addicts, to visit shops on their behalf in exchange for money.

Respondent: ‘I’ve took stuff to Cash4Gold places.’

Interviewer: ‘Ah, right, okay. If we start with the Cash4Gold kind of stuff, do you use postal services or do you take into a shop?’

Respondent: ‘Face to face, I used to. But nowadays you wouldn’t do that.’

Interviewer: ‘Right, okay. Has it become harder, would you say?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah. Well... and, now I wouldn’t take it into the shop, I’d have someone else do it for me.’

Interviewer: ‘Right. Who would that be?’

Respondent: ‘For the cameras and that.’

Interviewer: ‘Would that just be someone that you pay a bit of money to, or someone you work with?’

Respondent: ‘Money, yeah, it would be some addict. It’ll be any addict who’s got photo ID because they’re stupid and will go into a shop with ID and say, “Hi, my name’s Peter Pan, I live here, and this is stolen.” You know, if comes back, it’s not going to bite me in the arse, it’s going to bite them.’

Interviewer: ‘Yes, that makes sense. Were people willing to do that, then, just –'

Respondent: ‘Yes, of course.’

Interviewer: ‘Just wanted a bit of cash?’

Respondent: ‘Mhm. If they’re willing to stick a needle in their arm, they’re willing to walk into a shop.’

The vast majority of burglars who stole jewellery described having solid working relationships with one or more local independent jewellery shops. The early stages of developing these relationships were described as being fraught with risk and very much based on a technique of trial and error. Nevertheless, once established, these relationships were described as being both fruitful and mutually beneficial for both parties. The relationships that the interviewees shared with jewellers were described as being sufficiently trusting that they able to sell significant quantities of jewellery in a single sale, just so long as they respected particular codes of behaviour. An interviewee describes this process:

Interviewer: ‘Would you have to sell pieces individually after a burglary, then?’

Respondent: ‘No. [jeweller] was good. We understood each other. I didn’t take the p*ss, so he wouldn’t shaft me on prices. It was respect, yeah?’

Interviewer: ‘What do you mean?’

Respondent: ‘We understood each other. So he would give me a good price and let me take it all in so long as I didn’t tell no-one, not turn up looking wrong, so’s I’d wait my turn, look about until others [customers] were done, til they’d gone, yeah?’

A significant number of respondents described having this type of ongoing relationship with local independent jewellers and the presence of trust between the two parties meant that they were able to move, often large quantities of, goods with relative ease:

Interviewer: ‘Going back just to the jewellery, you said that you’re going to try and get rid of it as quickly as possible once you’ve taken it. Would you take it in bulk? Would you take the whole lot to somewhere or do you take pieces individually and try and sell them on their own?’

Respondent: ‘I’d just take the whole lot in bulk.'

Interviewer: ‘Right, and that doesn’t usually raise any questions?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah, I’d say they don’t really care because they just want to make a quick buck themselves and move it on.’

Interviewer: ‘And how often do you use them… in terms of the jewellers specifically.’

Respondent: ‘Once a month say… It’s probably obvious to them then that something’s amiss but they just don’t care.’

All of the more successful burglars in the cohort described having an ongoing relationship with a jeweller of this nature. So long as the jewellery that they sold remained of an acceptable standard, they suggested they were able to make sales. It was a commonly held belief among the respondents that the jewellers sold the jewellery on via their networks and melted gold down to make other jewellery.

Whilst a significant number of respondents reported having very well-established trusting, and often lucrative, relationships with local jewellers, the utility of these arrangements was understood to be limited when nominals found themselves in possession of high-value or distinctive pieces of jewellery. One respondent reported having been in possession of a very expensive Rolex watch following involvement in a high-value burglary in London:

Respondent: ‘We knew it was expensive, yo. We couldn’t just stroll into a shop with that. Not without people asking questions. [Joey] knew a guy that he used to move coke for, yeah? He was the only route we had for this and those rings we got. Man… we didn’t have no options. It was crazy what he gave us but we couldn’t say nothin’. Bent over he had us, and he knew it. We f*ckin’ knew it as well, but we wanted that sh*t gone. You don’t want to be left with that.’

Interviewer: ‘How much did you get for the items you sold, then?’

Respondent: ‘Between us we got seven grand man. Seven. The watch on itself was worth tens of. The fella bunked in some coke into the bargain and we made up some money that way but we had no choice.’

Interviewer: ‘What happened to the jewellery?’

Respondent: ‘Out the country man. Sh*t like that goes out the country. It can’t hang around. That fella could make that happen. We had no chance. We just had to take it.’

Thus, even when good fortune offered the respondents the prospect of considerable enrichment, they often lacked the skills and networks to fully realise potential high value returns. The men who participated in the research were able to move jewellery in high quantities into the licit market through their contacts in the jewellery industry. However, because their contacts remained at a high-street level, this meant that they were unable to sell more distinctive and valuable pieces as they were considered too conspicuous. Inevitably, this forced respondents to make sales to other black-market actors, as in the case detailed above where a sale was made to someone involved in the supply of cocaine. Another respondent, who had stolen expensive jewellery in residential burglaries detailed how his contacts in the stolen luxury car market proved invaluable in allowing him to realise profits from his goods:

Respondent: ‘So let me think… that was when we were sourcing cars for [Eddie]. He was your top of the market man. We were very busy in those days. Bang at it. So when we had those watches and the jewellery from the jobs we had done in [Cornwall], we didn’t really know what to do with them. To start with we took them to [George – the jeweller], but it wasn’t right. Said it was too risky and would only give us stupid money. We weren’t green. So we went to [Eddie]. He knew their worth alright, but he knew where we were at too. Give him his due… worked for him for years, we had. But yeah, he knew people, said he had people who would be interested so he took ‘em at an okay price. We couldn’t have got them to go any other way. You have eyes on stuff like that.’

Bicycles

Findings:

Whilst bicycles were only the tenth most commonly stolen property type in the research data, the number of bikes recorded as stolen remained very steady over time and did not reflect the wider trajectory of falling crime rates. Data collected in the research indicates that across the five key neighbourhood acquisitive crime types, burglary is by far the most common way in which bikes are stolen. Of all the bicycles reported to the research as stolen between 2018 and 2021, 84.4% were stolen in domestic burglaries and the tendency for bicycles to be targeted in this way remains constant over time with 83.7% of all bikes reported as stolen in 2018 being taken in burglaries. The equivalent figures for 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 82.4%, 85.2% and 86.6% respectively.

Offender Perspectives:

All of the respondents in the study had experience of stealing bicycles. Collectively, the cohort reported experience of stealing bikes from a variety of locations including from residential properties and personal vehicles. In relation to bike theft, the respondents were very clearly subdivided into two groups. The first group tended to steal bicycles as stand-alone thefts from locations away from residential properties and sometimes from vehicles. When engaged in burglaries, members of this group tended to make very calculated decisions about which items to steal and only took bikes on rare occasions if they knew them to be of significant value. The second group were far less discerning in their selection of targets, knew little about bikes and stole them on a fairly regular basis, often during the course of burglaries. One respondent who belonged to the latter group, had stolen a number of bikes, including during burglaries. He was a heavy drug user and his approach to theft was fairly chaotic and this was representative of the accounts of many research participants. Discussing his engagement with bicycle theft he said:

Respondent: ‘Bikes, yeah I took bikes.’

Interviewer: ‘Many?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah, suppose. I did. But they ain’t worth sh*t.’

Interviewer: ‘How come? How much would you get for them?’

Respondent: ‘Fifty quid usually. [Mark] always gave a flat fifty. He gave me a tonne once but… that was a joke. Our [respondent’s brother] said it was worth loads… like thousands loads and we got a hundred.’

Interviewer: ‘Right so, you usually get a flat fee for a bike. If this one was different, why did you take the money?’

Respondent: ‘I didn’t have a f*ckin’ scoobie [clue]. I didn’t have no idea what it was worth. I just wanted the money to get some drugs.’

Interviewer: ‘Didn’t you ever check it out before you sold them?’

Respondent: ‘Nah, no never. I just wanted rid. End of.’

This was a recurring theme among those engaged in less sophisticated forms of bike theft. They had little, or no, knowledge about the value of the items they took, they did not seek to research the bikes they had in their possession and instead merely sought to dispose of them as quickly as they could in order to access cash for drugs.

Conversely, there were others who approached the theft of bikes with a more entrepreneurial spirit and they were infinitely more knowledgeable about the technical features, and monetary value, of the items they stole. One respondent had previously worked in a bike shop and had a very good working knowledge of bikes because of this, whilst others researched the features of bikes in advance of their theft. One man, for example commented:

Respondent: ‘If it was something like a two hundred quid bike, you wouldn’t bother it. …Some addicts might though… Some addicts might take it, though…But they need to get twenty quid, don’t they?... I would go on Google, see what it’s worth and then if it’s worth taking, then take it.’

Many of the respondents engaged in online research of this nature, whilst others relied on their own existing knowledge of bike values, as outlined in the excerpt below:

Respondent: ‘I’d only take decent bikes. Something you can make some money off. Mountain bikes. Good ones. Not high street bikes. Your Treks, your Specialized, Giants they aways sell. Decent stuff. Not shoppers, not birds’ [women’s] bikes. I don’t mess about with worthless crap.’

Interviewer: ‘So did you research bikes in advance?’

Respondent: ‘No, I just know what fetches cash, what’s worth summit, so I’d look for it and only bother with stuff like that.’

The disposal routes for bikes differed between the two subsets of offenders, but crucially, local handlers were important to understanding the behaviours of both groups. Whilst the use of fences was widespread throughout the disposal of all commodity types, fences of bicycles appeared to be slightly different insofar as there appeared to be a degree of specialisation involved in handling bikes. As in the example given above, some respondents reported occasionally taking bikes to their regular local handlers where they could generate a small, flat fee, but this tended to be fairly infrequent. Instead, it was more common for interviewees to report that they had a specific point of contact to whom they would take bikes and who didn’t take a range of other goods as other fences would. The quotations below offer some insight into conversations on this subject:

Respondent: ‘If you had a bike, yeah…everyone round here took their bikes to [Simon]. He’d buys all the nicked bikes you can take. He’d take ‘em all. BMXs, top of the range mountain bikes, average crappy things… whatever. He had it. He was at if for years. Still is.’

Respondent: ‘Or, there’s a little Italian guy on [estate name], he takes bikes. The guy’s been doing the same shit for like 30 years. He buys stolen bikes off all the kids.’

A significant number of people spoke about their experience of these handlers who specialised in bikes and their specialisation possibly relates in some degree to their ability to store bikes. A number of people spoke about the storage units or garages that were used by the people to whom they sold stolen bicycles, and this appeared to differentiate them from handlers involved in the purchase of other types of goods. For example, the respondent below described the lock-up where he took his stolen bicycles:

Interviewer: ‘Where would you take the bikes to sell them, then?’

Respondent: ‘Always to [Dave]’

Interviewer: ‘Okay, the guy you mentioned earlier? Did you take them to his house?'

Respondent: ‘No, he had a lock-up. Like a storage tin… you know metal like, you know the ones? I’d meet him there. I’d have to take the bikes there.’

Some of these handlers were known to sell bikes online. One respondent described the handler as ‘running a bloody good bike shop, for years.’ This ‘bike shop’ was of course illegitimate but seemed to be common practice, with many respondents expressing the belief that the handlers to whom they sold bikes engaged in extensive online sales. Some were also known to sell the various components of bikes separately, particularly when dealing with more expensive bikes as the two men below discuss:

Respondent: ‘I sold them as a whole bike, knowing that [Tony’s] going to break them down and milk it… Pedals, wheels that are worth six hundred quid a set. Suspension springs, brakes.’

Respondent: ‘Oh aye, if you took something decent, the parts are always worth more separate and that just makes more sense… strip it all down and sell it off that way. He always did. You’d see it on his shop, the parts, separate like, different adverts. He wasn’t daft.’

The route to online sales platforms was not always a direct one, often involving a third party handler, as described above. Six of the respondents had direct experience of selling bikes online, but the vast majority described this as being something which they lacked the capability for. They described their lack of knowledge of online contexts and feared that their lack of expertise meant that they would incriminate themselves too easily. For those at the less organised and sophisticated end of the criminal spectrum, the possibility of selling online had simply not occurred to them. Of the six who had sold bikes directly online, two might have been considered to do so fairly consistently whilst the others did so on an adhoc basis. The respondent below explained that his inability to engage in an established pattern of online sales related to issues of storage:

Respondent: ‘You can’t just sell ‘em [bikes] all the time. See, where you gonna keep ‘em, for a start? Where you gonna put all them bikes? You can’t. So I sold some. I put ‘em up and got rid of ‘em but not regular like… it weren’t regular.’

The six respondents who had sold bikes online reported using Facebook Marketplace, Gumtree and Ebay in addition to local online sales pages on social media. Only one person reported selling components separately and this was the person who had previous experience of working in the bike industry. Engagement with online sales, was undoubtedly restricted to the more accomplished group of bicycle thieves who make calculated assessments of their targets. Their engagement with online platforms allowed them to realise market value for their goods because of the legitimacy it afforded them. However, this remained beyond the reach of the vast majority of respondents because they lacked the knowledge and skills to achieve this. Instead, they relied on engagement with local handlers and pawn shops to dispose of bicycles.

Vehicles

In existing literature, a very clear divide exists between cars which are not subsequently recovered and are resold or broken down for parts, and those that are later recovered after having been used by offenders, either recreationally, or in the course of subsequent offences. The literature indicates the dominance of organised criminality in the perpetration of the former form of vehicle theft. Interview data in the current project supports this idea. Twenty six respondents had experience of stealing either cars or motorbikes. The vast majority stole cars in order to use them to commit further crimes. These cars would be taken in the course of burglaries as offenders stole keys and used the cars to carry other stolen goods. They then described using the cars for short periods to carry out subsequent offences. The interview excerpt below details one person’s experience which was typical of this process:

Respondent: ‘I’d always take the keys for the car.’

Interviewer: ‘What would you do with the car?’

Respondent: ‘Well I’d drive away in it, first off. Then I’d use it commit more crime.’

Interviewer: ‘What kind of crime?’

Respondent: ‘More burglaries. See you take the plates off another car… [one] that’s the same obviously… and then you get to drive around on it for a few days or whatever. Then you can dump it or sell it…depending.’

Interviewer: ‘Okay, where would you sell it?’

Respondent: ‘Ah man, someone always wants cars. You can always sell cars.’

This was fairly typical of most accounts whereby respondents would steal cars and temporarily use them on false plates to commit more crime, before selling or abandoning the vehicle. When selling vehicles in this context, they tended to rely on informal drug networks to make sales. However, other respondents engaged in more instrumental vehicle thefts where cars were sold immediately after being stolen. Some of these thefts were commissioned by third parties where interviewees were tasked with stealing a specific type of car in exchange for a set fee. One respondent described his involvement in this form of vehicle theft:

Respondent: ‘We had been involved in twocing cars for a while. We loved it… back then, you’d never get to drive good cars and we were bombing around in all sorts, it was a f*cking riot. We sold them to this bloke round our way.’

Interviewer: ‘How would you describe him? How did you know him?’

Respondent: ‘He weren’t a fucking gangster or nowt. He was a family man, a businessman, like. He sold a bit of gear and he took the cars. He didn’t get involved in nothing else, I don’t think.’

Interviewer: ‘So is he the person who asked you to steal the cars?’

Respondent: ‘No… well, yeah kind of. So we always took the motors to [Barry]. He would always take them, but he said one day that he noticed we’d a few, like we’d been getting lucky and asked if we wanted to do some jobs for a mate of his. Like certain cars and that.’

Interviewer: ‘And you did it?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah man. It was no difference, just you’d have to look for those motors… the ones he wanted like and I’m not gonna lie to you they were more fun anyways… We did that for a few years.’

Interviewer: ‘What happened to the cars that you stole?’

Respondent: ‘[laughs] We never asked no questions like that, man. Though we did always say that he had one of those imaginary friends that kids have. That he just got into shifting more motors, more serious, like. Abroad, they went, I think. But we didn’t get involved in none of that.’

Four of the respondents reported stealing vehicles on behalf of others in exchange for a flat fee in the manner outlined above. The fees that they received ranged from one hundred pounds to five hundred pounds. The respondent below described being approached as a young person to steal vehicles:

Respondent: ‘First of all, it was a case of… I was probably about 17… and then we got approached by some older lads who were probably up to their own little things in their own little ways, and they were basically saying to us, like as kids were saying, “Look, if you can get us a BMW, we’ll give you 500 quid for the BMW.” So yeah, so what we would basically do is they would give us a slide hammer, which is basically the thing for popping out doors, you know for dents in the doors… They would normally give us one of those. That was kind of on the basis that if we lost that we had to give them 100 quid. There’d normally be three of us and we would sort of scour the streets, really, just kind of looking around. We’d look for property like a car in a more quieter place than as opposed as with a main road, because at the time... I wasn’t experienced, I’d say, really at the time, but you know normally a case of you’d always find a little stone with a little bit of like flint in it, a sharp edged stone, which would pop the quarter light on the car, push through the glass. Obviously, reach in, opened the door handle, put the slide hammer into the ignition, push in, turn it, pull out the barrel, and obviously put a screwdriver in and turn it, and drive the car away.’

Interviewer: ‘Brilliant. Okay. How did those lads find you, then, to ask you to do that?’

Respondent: ‘Because at the time, we was nicking... it was more things out of cars we was looking at back then, so we was known for doing that. It’s just obviously, the people you’re going to sell the cars stuff to, these are the bigger people than us at the time. We was only seventeen, sixteen and that, so it was like the people we’d go and sell things to, it’s normally through a weed dealer or a hash dealer or someone who was selling a bit of you know, a bit of cannabis, that you’d go through a link through them because they was obviously... where a lot of people buy weed and stuff from them, they’re going to know loads of different criminals in different areas. You’d normally go to him, try and sell him something. He’d say, “Right take it to so and so.” You’d go from there, take it to him, and then they’d say, “Look, can you get hold of any cars, or anything? If you can, you know, this is what we can give you.”’

Interviewer: ‘Brilliant. Do you have any inkling as to what happened with those cars after you gave them to them?’

Respondent: ‘No. No. No, well, that weren’t really sort of my side of things really. The case was just... you know, it’s 500 quid a car, and that you know, at the time, for me that was a lot of money.’

Another respondent suggested that, when higher value cars were specifically requested, they might expect to be able to receive a higher fee for obtaining them:

Interviewer: ‘And does anyone ever ask you to take them [cars] in advance?’

Respondent: ‘Yeah. They put in orders for certain types of car… I’d normally drive the cars.’

Interviewer: ‘Right okay so, you usually drive the cars. In terms of the cars then, how much, you mentioned that it’s like £150 ish for a bike, how much would you say you get for a car?’

Respondent: ‘Between £500 could be up £1500, depending what car it is okay. Like an Audi RS6 or something like that you’re getting £1500 two grand for it.’

Other people’s TOMV offences were of their own volition and relied on informal networks to sell goods. These arrangements also tended to be based on flat fee arrangements as one participant explains:

Respondent: ‘The cars I’d take to the pikeys, and they’d buy it… Yes, I knew some travellers that live in [Roherham] and I could turn up... say like I stole four cars in one night before, yeah, left them all down this road parked up on the road with the keys under the wheels at the back, and then when I... while I was driving out, I went on the site in the morning, and he’s like, “Where’s the cars, chappie, where’s the cars?” I said, “They’re on the road,” and we jumped in his car, drove down there and I showed him every car. I got out, got the key, opened the door, started it, got in this car with the... obviously locked it all and got back in. He give me £800 each car.’

Interviewer: ‘£800 a car. Right, okay.’

Respondent: ‘Yeah.’

Interviewer: ‘Was that a decent price?’

Respondent: ‘Some them of good cars, as well, man… Some of them were good cars, worth good money.’

Interviewer: ‘Right, so there was a standardised price regardless of what the car was?’

Respondent: ‘He wouldn’t take brand new ones. He was selling them for bits, I’m sure of it.’

Interviewer: ‘How did you make contact with him?’

Respondent: ‘I met him in prison.’

For those involved in the sale of stolen vehicles, none had direct links with overseas networks, though their accounts indicate that these may have been the destinations for the items they sold. Whilst some had experience of selling to domestic chop shops, this appeared to be the extent of their first-hand experience of organised crime. However, it appeared that significant cross over between organised crime activity and neighbourhood offending existed where individuals committed TOMV offences on behalf of third parties. The people for whom vehicles were procured were understood to commission large numbers of thefts and to dispose of high numbers of vehicles, indicating an organised element to their offending. The type of car theft outlined above is only able to account for a proportion of vehicle thefts in the UK, with a significant proportion being attributable to widespread OCG activity. Data obtained from police forces and ROCUs clearly demonstrates that a significant proportion of currently mapped acquisitive threats relate to vehicle crime. Among these cases reported to the research, a significant number involved FNO’s and international disposal routes and these forms of vehicle thefts have very different implications for policing responses, including considerations around national borders.