In the second instalment of our exclusive interview with DeterTech’s Head of Crime Intelligence, Rachael Oakley and Director of Security & Risk, Gary Higgins, we dig in to the reasons behind the big crime trends blighting businesses, and the steps DeterTech is taking to help those businesses secure themselves.

According to recent crime statistics there were 530,643 reported shoplifting offences in the year to March, a 20% increase from the previous year, and reported attacks on wind farms are up 300%, and £40 million worth of tools were stolen in 2024.

So, we know that certain crimes are on the rise – retail theft, tool theft, and theft from wind farms and solar farms, etc, but what are the main drivers and what action is taking place to get a handle on it? 

Higgins explains: “Where retail crime is concerned, there are a few factors at play – at one level, cost-of-living pressures play a part, but probably only a small part.

“There is also a larger, organised crime element that can take advantage of the fact that there are fewer staff on the shop floor, with self-service counters replacing people at the till, and also shop layout being a factor, with valuable items often near the entrance. For criminals, it can be easy pickings, and some retailers see security as a luxury that they don’t necessarily need to invest in.

“Criminals are intelligent beings who change their tactics around based on what the risk is to them, and the potential reward. They perceive the risk as lower, because there are a lot of pressures on the police and what they can, and can’t respond to, because they have finite resources available to them.

“So, where there are gaps in police response and when there are items that can easily be resold, often at the very, very valuable price, then that tracks that attracts organised criminality.”

“That said, there has been some great success in cracking down on, and dismantling organised retail crime, in the form of Operation Pegasus, coordinated by Opal (policing’s national intelligence unit for serious organised acquisitive crime)”.

On wind farms, solar farms and copper thefts, Oakley notes how the issues are similar. In rural areas, at facilities that aren’t necessarily secured as well as they should be, the reward for criminals often outweighs the risk, particularly with the price of copper being so high.

She says that while these facilities are not easy to defend, security has not been priority.

“I’ve seen occasions where it’s very clear that security has been a tick box exercise to meet the insurance requirement,” adds Higgins.

There is a lot of acknowledgement within the industry now, and they are stepping up to the plate, but there’s still work to be done, right?

Why do you think they are so lax with the security in those situations?

“It hasn’t always been a major issue, but the level of theft is quite tightly linked to the rise and fall in the value of copper,” Higgins explains. “Traditionally, criminals would steal from railways, telecom sites, and theft of lead from church roofs, but all of those industries have stepped up their security game, so the criminals have moved to wind farms, etc.”

Which of your solutions would be applicable to sites like that, yeah, those sorts of places?

“The short answer is all of them,” says Higgins. “We’ll carry out an assessment – a physical assessment of the site and Rachel’s team will carry out an intelligence assessment, to determine what’s been stolen, where it’s been stolen, how often has things have been stolen, what crime is like in that specific locality, and what organised crime groups are active. We will use this intelligence to determine what security measures need to be put in place. It’s an Intelligent Advisory note that’s given to them in the form of a thorough, well thought out, well examined threat assessment, and then we will recommend which solutions are right.

“If the recommendation is a crime prevention security solution that Detertech doesn’t supply, then we’ll still recommend it. What we’re trying to do is make sure we provide the right solution to that client.

“So let’s just as an example, if I felt that crime was that was so rife that it needed man guarding, then I make that recommendation if it’s the right thing for the customer. And then there are other physical solutions, like enhanced fencing and enhanced gates, better locks, bollards on the roads around it, the perimeter, those sorts of things which we don’t provide.

“Where valuable assets need to be protected we will recommend SmartWater, as any stolen property can be identified. This is the last line of defence. The first line of defence is the SmartWater signage to warn and deter criminals away, as well as our cameras and other CCTV, which lets criminals know that this organisation is serious about security. It’s about tipping that risk/reward balance back into our favour.”

In the next, and final instalment, we’ll hear how DeterTech is collaborating with other agencies, including the National Infrastructure Crime Reduction Partnership nationally, and INTERPOL, internationally to tackle crime and bring the numbers down…

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