New generation of budget-flight criminals roving Europe on ‘burglary blitzes’
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Version 0 of 1. A new breed of travelling criminal gang is exploiting cheap flights and visa-free travel to launch “burglary blitzes” on countries including the UK, according to senior law enforcement officials. Highly mobile groups of criminals are dodging arrest by flying in and out of European nations on short-term operations, according to the head of the European crime agency Europol. The tactic follows the blueprint of the so-called “Pink Panther” gang, a group of Balkans-based criminals responsible for raids on high-end jewellers in London from the late 1990s. Senior officers said that groups were increasingly working with community figures already based in Western European nations to plan break-ins and launder the profits. It warned earlier this year that small groups were travelling from Albania to commit crimes across Europe before being rotated with fresh groups to reduce the risks of being caught. “Old-fashioned crime – burglary and robberies of jewellery stores – are now happening by highly mobile criminal groups operating all round Europe,” Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol told The Independent. “It’s very traditional crime but in the past 95 per cent of housebreakers were committed within half a mile. Now you’re having Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian and Bulgarian gangs and others from across Europe jumping on airlines and knocking off [burglaries] and almost getting back out of the country the next day. “We have some criminal groups we’ve identified in Europe that are operating literally in every European country over a one or two-year programme, supported by a local infrastructure normally connected with individuals from the expatriate community of that criminal group.” Scotland Yard said earlier this month that victims of trafficking were being brought over by UK-based gang leaders for weekend crime sprees targeting designer clothes shops in central London. Plane ticket records suggested that the gangs were block-booking seats on budget flights to bring over Eastern Europeans and then sending them back again within a few days. |