Kingdom Security said “now I’m experiencing something different.”
Food retailers have seen a “significant” increase in pensioner shoplifters last year.
Kingdom Security’s retail director John Nussbaum said his staff are looking at “a different kind of shoplifter now” as the cost of living “pushing people through things they’ve never seen before.”
Kingdom Security, which provides security services to hundreds of stores across the country, including supermarkets, convenience stores and shopping malls, has been receiving weekly shoplifting reports from across the UK, involving “people who can’t afford food.”
He states:
“For us over the past 12 months, we have this different level of crime right now, and we are experiencing something different now.
“We have a case where mothers caught shoplifting while they were with their children.
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“We’re used to seeing organized gangs. It’s normal, but now the type of people caught has changed.”
He estimated that 5% of all people who caught shoplifting by kingdom staff each week were over 50 years old.
“We’ve never seen this and I’ve been in security for 30 years. Five years ago, five years ago you never saw this type of theft. We kept it down to living expenses. People can’t afford to spend £10, £20 on food.
He added: “Retailers don’t tend to involve police when dealing with pensioners, and stores tend to want to handle it themselves.
“If a pensioner is given extradition to the police for shoplifting, it’s not a good advertising for the supermarket.”
Nussbaum’s comments follow numbers showing that the number of shoplifting crimes recorded by British and Wales police in a year has surpassed 500,000 for the first time.
In 2024, a total of 516,971 crimes were recorded by the troops, up 20% from 429,873 in 2023.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (ONS), this figure is the highest as current police record practice began between March 2003 and March 2003.
Shoplifting crimes have been carried out at record levels over the past two years, and have seen a “surge” since the Covid-19 pandemic, ONS said.
Additionally, Nussbaum said staff were seeing “horrific violence every day” from organized gangs.
He said: “It’s not uncommon to come across a gun on the scene.
“We had a major surgery with the police to clean the city centre, including the shopping centre. We found knives, drugs. There’s a lot of drug deals going on.
“We have a quick response unit for one of the large retailers, which can get to the location very quickly and are highly trained for a variety of incidents and protection.
“But we need to remember that retail staff must also deal with this every day.”
He said: “I have no fear anymore.
“If someone is arrested, they may be fined or spend the night in prison. There’s no more deterrent. There’s nothing to stop these people.
“There was a prolific shoplifter who was being arrested and I came back two days later. There’s quite a lot of this.”
Nussbaum said it helped face recognition techniques that were attempted by ASDA at five major Manchester stores, including client faces, picked up on CCTV, scanned and compared to individuals on internal watchlists.
The ASDA-edited watchlist is made up of individuals who may not have been convicted of a crime, but suspect that they are involved in “theft, violence and/or fraud at the ASDA store.”
Home Bargain, Southern Corp, Buggens, Cost Cutter, and several independent convenience stores use similar technologies.
