An early Bath for travelling criminals thanks to successful Partnership working

Travelling criminals face a tough time when they try their luck in Bath. For there is a warm welcome waiting for them in the form of more than a hundred members of the Bath and District Business Crime Reduction Partnership, whose close links with the Police and Local Authority CCTV have recently led to a range of arrests.

One London based fraudster used a suspect credit card to purchase a very large quantity of office equipment. Eagle eyed security staff kept a close watch on his activities and he took fright and left on a train back to London. A Police search later found many thousands of pounds worth of electrical goods and cloned and stolen credit cards and commended both the Partnership member store for their intelligence and the security guards for their observations.

On another occasion two women were spotted in the SouthGate Centre using large amounts of older style £20 notes to purchase goods. Several Partnership member stores put out this information over the city radio link and they were monitored by both CCTV and member stores. When the women returned later to attempt refunds in order to obtain fresh notes they were arrested. It was later discovered they had recently been released from prison for money laundering offences, some of the funds coming from the criminal exploitation of the Chinese illegal immigrants in Morecambe Bay in 2009.

Another success involved the sharing of intelligence between members to identify a suspect using a variety of forged credit cards. After being spotted by an alert security guard and arrested it was found that he was part of a ring producing forged credit cards and machinery and laptop information were seized at his London address.

Inspector Steve Mildren, Neighbourhood Inspector for Bath City Centre, was delighted with the success stories: “These are good examples of teamwork by the people on the ground. They also demonstrate the co-operation between Partnership members, their Security Guards and the Police under the umbrella of the Bath & District Business Crime Reduction Partnership and the positive steps being made to tackle and reduce retail crime in Bath city centre.”

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