Police smash shoplifting gang using DNA to trace 5,000 stolen items: Officers raid corner shops selling £150K worth of goods swiped on order from major supermarkets

Daily Mail​

23-04-2025

Fifteen people have been arrested after police investigating an organised shoplifting gang marked thousands of stolen items with synthetic DNA.
Metropolitan Police detectives tagged 5,000 commonly stolen items such as alcohol and chocolate with SelectaDNA, a fluid only visible under ultraviolet (UV) light that is almost impossible to remove.
Items were then stolen from shops including Waitrose and the Co-op - and turned up at eight off licences and newsagents across two London boroughs.
In a series of targeted raids on April 9, 100 police officers stormed eight corner shops, a barber's shop and a residential property.
Stolen items were identified with the use of UV torches to spot the telltale DNA. Around £150,000 of goods have been recovered.
Among the items found were supermarket own-brand products that should not have been available elsewhere, being sold onto unwilling shoppers.
Others included chocolates such as Dairy Milk bars and Guylian seashells, Gaviscon indigestion tablets, Sensodyne toothpaste and booze such as Smirnoff vodka and Gordon's gin.
The force believes gangs been stealing the items to order and selling them onto businesses at lower prices, who would then try to shift them quickly for pure profit.
A total of 10 men aged between 23 and 64 and three women aged between 39 and 45 were arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods.
Later police activity on April 17 resulted in two further arrests of two men aged 48, on suspicion of the same offence.
All 15 suspects have been bailed pending further enquiries.
Where did the Met Police carry out raids?
The Met targeted shops across two London boroughs - Wandsworth and Mitcham - in its targeted raids earlier this month. They were in:
Fernlea Road, Mitcham
Balham High Road
Kingston Road, Wimbledon
London Road, Tooting (x2)
Christchurch Road, Wimbledon
Church Road, Mitcham
Tooting High Street
A barber shop in Tooting High Street and a residential property in Sandy Lane, Cheam were also searched.
Among those understood to have been arrested was a 48-year-old suspected to be the ringleader of the operation, as well as a number of shopkeepers.
One man, aged 64, was also arrested on suspicion of having a Taser and another, 39, of owning a machete.
The operation came following months of planning to identify the pattern of offenders, working with retailers and analysing crime reports to see where shoplifters were most likely to strike.
Officers' use of SelectaDNA, meanwhile, allowed them to inscribe each item with a unique and traceable identifier that could link it to the shop it was stolen from.
The force is now carrying out enquiries at those stores to gather further evidence such as CCTV in order to bring prosecutions forward.
It's a landmark piece of detective work by the Met, which has been trialling the use of the DNA technology since the start of the year.
Many shops make use of it and other similar marking schemes such as SmartWater - and it can be bought by the public to protect their property and valuables.
It is also a win for the force in the face of allegations that it is not taking shoplifting seriously despite the damage it wreaks to the economy.
Sergeant James Burke, from the Met's neighbourhood policing team in south-west London, said: 'Shoplifting pushes up prices for customers and often results in retail workers being verbally and physically abused.
'It also funds the drug trade and contributes to anti-social behaviour and violence.
'The local officers in my neighbourhood team have put in months of hard work alongside impacted businesses to trial new tactics to drive down shoplifting in the area and have delivered impressive results here.
'The Met is focussed on targeting those involved in coordinating this activity and by disrupting their operation we are confident we can reduce offending and the impact it has on communities across London.'
Handling stolen goods carries a sentence of up to 14 years in custody depending on an individual's culpability in the crime, as well as the value of the goods handled.
Shoplifting offences rose by 23 per cent to more than 490,000 in the year to last September - prompting warnings from industry figures that retail theft is 'out of control'.
There were a total of 492,914 offences recorded by police in the year to September, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) found - the highest figure since current police recording practices began for the year ending March 2003.
This was despite businesses paying a record £1.8billion on prevention tactics such as CCTV, more security guards and body worn cameras.