Criminals are travelling hundreds of miles a day to target shops and are pushing up the price of everyone’s bill, a top retail security expert has warned after offence hit an all-time high
A security guru has revealed some of the tricks pulled by Britain’s worst shoplifters – and warned that organised criminals are driving hundreds of miles a day to ransack shelves.
Andrew Cockerill, Account Director at Kingdom Security, works with some of Britain’s biggest supermarkets, including Tesco – and regularly sees the “traumatising” impact of violent and aggressive thefts on retail workers and security staff.
Speaking to the Mirror, he described one disturbing incident in Leeds which saw a man in his 40s punch a 19-year-old female security officer in the face after she tried to stop him for stealing money from a customer.
Ensure our latest headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as your Preferred Source in your Google search settings.
READ MORE: High street shops gearing up for large scale job losses amid collapse of big namesREAD MORE: UK fish and chip shop giant saved from administration as all employees keep jobs
He was later found to be carrying the cash, two blades, and drugs paraphernalia. Andrew recalled: “I’ve seen a lot of escalations, a lot of incidents. Only a couple of years ago in Leeds City Centre, there was an incident that we had with one of our female staff detectives, Amy, who approached a male who had stolen some money from a member of the public.
“She was punched in the face. She was assaulted when we detained him. Obviously he had a weapon on him. He had two bladed articles and the money that he’d stolen from the member of the public and drugs paraphernalia.”
Mr Cockerill – who has been working in security for over two decades – says in that time, the type of shoplifter he sees has changed significantly, with far more organised criminals now turning up in surveillance.
Many of these arrive with a list of items they want to steal, and some will drive hundreds of miles a day to target different areas.
He explained: “We’re seeing a lot more of the organised crime groups. With the stealing to order, we are seeing them coming with looking for specific goods, trolley push-outs with multiples of the same items. Your luxury goods, your spirits, and even stuff like the electricals, we’re seeing boosts on them as well.
“We see a lot of patterns of people hitting different locations. So they may hit South Yorkshire one day, and then they’re up in Scotland or down in the Midlands. We are seeing the same groups travelling up and down the country to try and evade the security teams.
The methods used by security firms to prevent retail crime have also grown more sophisticated, he explained, including technology that identifies the movements of the groups through data analysis. This creates intelligence which can be passed to guards on the shop floor, and ensures they are “prepared” when criminals strike their area.
Last year, the Centre for Retail Research warned that shoplifting adds £133 onto the cost of an average household’s shopping bill each year – and Andrew said this knock-on effect, combined with increasing involvement of career criminals, dispels the myth of shoplifting as a “victimless” crime.
“It’s definitely not victimless. The things that shoplifting supports in the background or enables in the background, there is the abuse that comes with it, the antisocial behaviour, the abuse to staff members, the trauma and experiences that that inflicts on people.
“But also the money that’s being made often is from organised retail crime, and enables much larger crime to occur. So it’s not victimless and it’s not isolated anymore. It’s all connected and it’s just maybe a lower rung on an escalation that’s in place.”
Another change he has witnessed in recent years is the “glamourisation” of shoplifting, including the emergence of wannabe social media stars who are videoing themselves in the act.
“We see some that are videoing themselves do it and posting that on for clout. The response afterwards when, like I say, when they are caught, there definitely isn’t that regret or remorse from the incident that you would have got previously. I think as well because a lot of the time now they know that the police are not going to attend. There isn’t that consequence. So it’s difficult even for us to have an impact with young offenders when they know they’re going to be released.”
Shoplifting in England and Wales reached a record high last year, according to Home Office statistics, with over 519,00 incidents reported in the year to September 2025. Many more are believed to go unreported. Labour has said its Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently being read in the House of Lords, will introduce a new standalone offence for assaulting a shop worker punishable by up to six months in prison, and remove the rule introduced by the previous Tory government which saw theft of items below £200 treated only as a lesser, summary offence.
