Organised criminals are targeting housing developments in Telford and detectives believe they've already conducted more than 100 raids.
Housing developments like this one have been targeted a number of times, including for their boilers.
"There, they were just pulling a fence apart, smashing the windows, going in, cutting the pipes, often flooding the houses, then ripping the boilers off the walls." "It has to be someone who can say 'I can get you a boiler mate'. It couldn't be a resale to a shop or anything like that," said Tom Williams, senior site manager at The Quarters.
In Telford, police analysis suggests the criminals mainly strike between 5pm and 7am when there's"a limit on security," and often on Fridays when valuable materials like fuel may have been left on site in preparation for the following week. The tactics the criminals use to steal items from building sites vary, but they can be quite sophisticated.
The analysis identified 103 burglaries on building sites between February 2018 and January 2023, but officers suspect the number of offences is much higher."Our analysis showed that the offences peaked in 2018, then tailed off quite significantly during Covid. Three people were arrested on February 22 and two were picked up on March 1. All were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit burglary.
But this increase in organised burglaries and thefts is by no means a one-way street, with police taking a number of steps to counter the criminals. "And we do find that once the houses are starting to be owned, the thefts of kit drop off," he continued.
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