How ‘Morrisons Four’ who terrorised supermarkets in £120k shoplifting spree unravelled international smuggling ring

FOUR shoplifters who stole £120,000 worthy of items from British supermarkets were moving for an planetary smuggling ring, an probe revealed.

The "Morrisons Four" were ordered to thieve the items from much than 50 branches of Morrisons by a web of gangs successful Romania.

The eastbound European pack paid thieves to bargain intoxicant and toiletries from supermarkets and precocious thoroughfare shops.

These were past resold done a wholesaler and a fig of car footwear sales.

These see £500 worthy of toothbrushes, 89 boxes of Strepsils, 108 Sudocrem tubs, and 331 packets of Sensodyne toothpaste.

Duncan Etchells, a retired detective from Norfolk constabulary and who is heading an probe into the gangs, said 1 of the houses wherever the stolen goods were kept was “like a mini Morrisons”.

Shoplifting was not constricted to Morrisons, with dozens of stores besides targeted, according to Channel 4 Dispatches' documentary  Britain’s Shoplifting Gangs Exposed.

The gang's power was exposed by Rachel Gillett, a transgression and investigations manager astatine Total Security Services (TSS) Ltd, erstwhile the steadfast was asked to analyse the thefts by Morrisons.

On mean 1,300 shoplifting offences are reported a time successful the UK, the highest complaint each recorded, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Prosecution rates nevertheless person declined to a 4th compared with 20 years agone - which is heavy costing shops and supermarkets.

In 2022 and 2023 retailers mislaid £1.8 cardinal due to the fact that of shoplifting.

Many retailers are present turning to autarkic information analysts for help.

This comes arsenic a survey by the British Retail Consortium revealed 60 per cent of shops thought constabulary effect was "poor" oregon "very poor".

The investigations manager astatine TSS told Channel 4 she noticed the gang-of-four's "strange behaviour" aft hours analysing Morrisons' CCTV footage.

Rachel said: “Someone would spell circular the store and show fundamentally the full country to enactment retired what they needed to bash to get distant with the products, truthful you had [at least] 1 spotter, and 2 radical taking the products."

The radical was tracked to Norfolk and arrested successful May past year, aft TSS passed their findings onto the police.

Robert-claudiu Alexe and Elena-brindusa Efta, were jailed for 27 months and 18 months respectively.

After collaborating with 27 constabulary forces crossed the UK the constabulary were capable to nexus the "Morrisons Four" to a Romanian web of organised crime.

Elena told constabulary she had been coerced into the gang's operations by its ringleader Zeno Gugulan and said she was offered £50 for each stealing mission.

The gang's person was aboriginal tracked down astatine his location successful Bucharest, Romania by a newsman astatine Channel 4.

He is understood to beryllium portion of a transgression radical progressive successful sharking, quality trafficking and baccy smuggling.

The documentary besides revealed the stolen items were sold to a wholesaler tally by Indian men successful Bedford.

Other thieved goods were sold astatine a drawstring of antithetic car footwear income successful Romford, Essex, and Nine Elms marketplace successful South London.

Secret filming besides showed vendors admitting they were alert that the merchandise they were selling had been stolen from Boots, Superdrug and Sainsbury's.

A Romanian undercover newsman posing arsenic a thief was told by a typical of Prime Value Distribution, a wholesaler successful Bedford, that they could merchantability his stolen items "across the globe".