A new team within Opal, the national policing’s intelligence unit for serious and organised acquisitive crime, is rolling out training to retailers and police forces as part of the next stage in combatting rising levels of retail crime.
The team, funded by Pegasus – a partnership between 13 of the UK’s leading retailers including John Lewis, Co-op, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose – will support police and retailers in understanding Opal’s role and how to refer intelligence which can then be analysed and explored on a national level.
The virtual sessions will take place throughout April and will explain the thresholds and requirements for referrals, demonstrating how the team will work with forces, retailers, businesses, and organisations to gather information.
It comes as shoplifting hit a record high of 5.6m incidents in 2023, almost fivefold as many as the previous year’s record of 1.1m incidents in 2022, according to figures from the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS).
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Opal head of intelligence Stephanie Coombes said that the unit looks to make it “clear and straightforward” for retailers to share information and that the training sessions “are an important element in achieving this”.
She explained that this role has been carried out by Opal for other crime types for “a number of years,” adding that it has seen “significant successes from having a national overview of what’s happening in the organised crime world”.
“You may have for example, an organised crime group targeting a chain of convenience stores in one region who are also using the same tactics in several different areas.
“Without a national team to bring together that information, we could have several police forces each looking into the same group so Opal’s role is to centralise that intelligence, build a strong evidence package and then work with the relevant force to deal with these high harm offenders.”
Coombes added: “We know that many retailers have intelligence built up through their own systems and processes and the training sessions aim to demonstrate how they can work with us to share that information so action can be taken.”
