Germany's crimewave has a dangerous lesson for Britain

Telegraph

a day ago

Just days ago in Germany, Michael Ballweg was convicted after a 44-day court case for tax evasion. The sum: €19.53. For this, Ballweg was arrested in 2022 and spent nine months in a high-security prison. His home was searched and he was accused of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of euros, charges that were not substantiated in court. The prosecution demanded three years in prison and half a million euros as a fine, which was then rejected.
The immensely harsh treatment of Ballweg cannot be separated in the minds of many Germans from his past as the most popular anti-lockdown organiser during the Covid pandemic. Many will suggest it is striking how efficient and uncompromising the German state can be when dealing with critics and political dissenters, and yet how lenient it appears in response to widespread theft.
According to a new study by the EHI Retail Institute, shoplifters caused billions of euros in losses for German retailers. The data, gathered from 98 major retail chains operating over 17,000 stores, which represent more than 20 per cent of all retail sales in Germany, revealed that nearly €3bn worth of goods were stolen in 2024. This marks the third consecutive year of rising shoplifting-related losses and the highest figure ever recorded. Consumers must bear the financial burden of paying higher prices to cover the growing costs of surveillance, private security, and anti-theft measures.
A new phenomenon in Germany is the rise of highly organised criminal gangs and clans. These groups are believed to be responsible for a significant portion of shoplifting crimes, focusing on alcohol, trainers, tech products, and cigarettes, which they then sell on the grey market. Estimates suggest that one in three thefts is committed by organised crime. Interestingly, while official police statistics report a 5 per cent decrease in shoplifting, many retailers have observed an increase. This discrepancy may stem from the fact that 98 per cent of incidents are not even reported to the police due to low conviction rates.
Instead, many retailers opt to issue exclusion orders, banning known thieves from entering their premises, as a more practical response. According to Stefan Genth, general manager of the German Trade Association: 'Many retailers are frustrated because reports rarely lead to the perpetrators being convicted and sanctioned, and therefore they avoid the bureaucratic effort involved in filing criminal charges.' He also warned that Germany may be heading toward a situation similar to that in the United States, where many products are locked behind security cases. The lax sentencing and response to shoplifting seems to have made many criminals completely brazen. Store managers report that thieves walk out with shopping worth €200. An increase in violence by thieves has led some stores to forbid employees to stop the criminals.
The nature of crime in Germany has changed dramatically. Traditionally not known for spectacular heists or entrenched organised crime, the country has, over the past five years, seen a rise in both. One of the most notorious examples involves the Remmo clan, a powerful Arab crime syndicate whose members immigrated to Germany between 1975 and 1990. Five members were convicted in connection with the audacious 2019 burglary of the Green Vault in Saxony, during which they stole jewels and artefacts of immense historical and cultural value.
They were also behind the 2017 theft of a massive gold coin bearing the image of Queen Elizabeth II from a museum in Berlin, a crime facilitated by an accomplice they had infiltrated into the museum's security staff. Despite the scale of the crime, the criminals got away with a fine and only four and a half years in jail. Worryingly, the reach of the clans appears to extend beyond theft: there have been documented cases of infiltration into the police, job centres, and local government immigration offices, raising concerns about institutional vulnerability.
What remains is a feeling that Germany is capable of prosecuting and punishing dissenters and politically inconvenient people, while organised crime, much of it foreign, is allowed to grow. It's small solace to know that, while our economy has been without any meaningful growth for five years, at least the private security firms have record revenues. It surely won't be long until the shops in Germany have the same ubiquitous locked cabinets and security tags that are already such a feature of places like San Francisco and London.