Selling stolen watches ‘now more lucrative than drugs’ – and some victims fear for their lives
Stealing expensive watches and selling them on the black market has become a criminal enterprise “more lucrative than drugs”, according to a former watch dealer forced to retire after being violently robbed three times.
Paul Thorpe said a week’s worth of stealing high-end watches in London could make “more money than some people would earn in a lifetime”.
“It’s an industry all in itself. And I think in many areas, it’s actually overtaken drugs as the crime of choice for some criminal gangs,” he said.
“Drugs are obviously very dangerous to carry or to transport, whereas watches are very small and very rarely questioned. As an example, you can’t get on a plane with a kilo of cocaine, but you can get on a plane with a million pounds worth of stolen watches and I very much doubt anyone will even bat an eyelid.
“The criminal gangs know this, and they use that to their advantage.”
Since 2015, the number of stolen watches recorded in England and Wales has nearly doubled – from 6,696 then to 11,035 last year, data from Watchfinder.co.uk shared with Sky News shows. More than 6,000 were in London.
The enterprise has been bolstered by soaring demand for second hand watches, which has seen the value of these pieces nearly double in just a few years.
‘Is he going to kill me?’
Nick Triggs and his wife were robbed of their Rolexes while spending the day in South Kensington last January. He feared the gang would kill him.
“A black BMW screeched to a stop beside me. The door opened, the guy gets out and smashes me – I think with a knuckleduster – on the left cheekbone,” he recalled.
Nick Triggs feared for his life when a gang robbed him and his wife of their Rolexes
“I fall backwards, down to the car, and I look up and there is another person showing me a 15-inch machete with a grey gun metal blade, and serrated edges.
“I look up to him, I’m groggy, I’m disorientated, and I think ‘is he going to kill me?’
“The first guy then shouts: ‘Give us your watches!’ – so we hand them over, and they race off.”
Mr Triggs’s cheek was broken in three places, he lost several teeth and was left with permanent nerve damage. But he said the psychological damage is the most severe.
“It’s a mental scarring that lives with you in the back of your mind,” he said. “All for the sake of a couple of watches.”
Gangs ‘wait outside restaurants and bars’
Mr Triggs’s wife was able to take down the BMW’s number plate, and – after a police helicopter chase through central London – the gang were caught and later convicted over a rampage of violent robberies.
They are due to be sentenced in June, but they’re just one gang among countless others who have caught on to a lucrative model.
Mr Thorpe said thieves most-often use spotters to target wealthy areas, waiting outside high-end bars or restaurants, or even watch shops to see who leaves with a bag, before confronting them in the street or following them home.
Sometimes spotters work as waiters, or drivers, and text ahead to the gang to let them know who to target. Others will stalk social media sites, looking out for anyone posing in an expensive watch, with their location clearly visible.
Once the crime has been committed, watches are small, easily concealed, and can be resold at a sizeable profit, with demand and value having rocketed since the pandemic.
‘People are getting targeted’
At his store, Diamond Watches London, owner Danny Shahid stocks a sapphire encrusted Daytona for £275,000, which last year was going for £200,000.
The watch he’s wearing was £100,000 before the pandemic, but would now go for £185,000.
The value of premium watches has sky-rocketed in recent years
“Not a lot of watches were produced [during lockdown] so the value of them increased massively,” he said.
“Sadly, that now attracts the wrong attention, and so the people who wear these watches are getting targeted.”
Sky News understands some owners are so scared they are hiring bodyguards, and private security teams, to protect themselves in high-risk areas.
Alex Boden, of Sagacity Security, told Sky News: “We offer services of picking up watches for clients if they don’t feel confident going shopping, or we can accompany clients to pick up their pieces.
“Whether it’s just an hour, before escorting them back to their door, or a few hours if they’re out on a shopping trip.
“We also make sure at the end of the day they haven’t been followed home.”
Gangs target wealthy watch owners as they can resell their timepieces for big money
The National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for personal robbery, Commander Richard Smith, said such crimes have a “devastating impact” on victims and leave them with “long-lasting trauma”.
“We continue to proactively target those habitual criminals who can be responsible for a large proportion of offending, alongside engaging with communities to improve education around keeping yourself safe,” he added.
UK
Abuse ‘ignored’ at Medomsley Detention Centre where UK’s ‘most prolific’ sex offender attacked young men, report finds
Decades of abuse of thousands of young men by staff at a detention centre in County Durham was “ignored and dismissed” by the prison service, the police and the Home Office, an investigation has found.
Warning: Readers may find the content below distressing
The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) has issued a report into how “horrific” physical and sexual violence was allowed to continue against 17 to 21-year-olds at the Medomsley Detention Centre in Consett.
It named officer Neville Husband who was thought to have groomed and attacked hundreds of trainees in Medomsley’s kitchens. He was described by the ombudsman “as possibly the most prolific sex offender in British history”.
Neville Husband in December 1983. File pic: NCJ Archive/Mirrorpix/Getty
The abuse at Medomsley continued “unchallenged” for the entire 26 years of its operation, from 1961 to 1987, according to the report from ombudsman Adrian Usher. There was, he said, “extreme violence and acts of a sadistic nature”.
The centre held inmates who were all first-time offenders and who had been convicted of crimes ranging from shoplifting and non-payment of fines to robbery.
A sign for the centre in July 1998. Pic: Elliot Michael/Mirrorpix/Getty
Several members of staff were convicted after investigations by Durham Constabulary in 2001 and 2023 found widespread abuse of more than 2,000 detainees at Medomsley.
But the ombudsman investigated what authorities knew about the abuse, whether there were opportunities to have intervened at the time and what was done about any opportunities.
Husband ‘used power with devastating effect’
Husband was finally convicted of sexual assault and was jailed in 2003 and again in 2005. He died in 2010.
Mr Usher said: “The illegitimate power imbalance that existed between Husband and the trainees and other staff further flourished within a culture of collusion and silence from other employees.
“Husband used this power with devastating effect.”
Then home secretary Leon Brittan visiting in 1985. Pic: Geoff Hewitt/Mirrorpix/Getty
Trainees ‘physically abused’
Trainees were physically abused from the moment they arrived, when they bathed, were strip searched, during physical education, while working and even during medical examinations, the PPO found.
Victims were targeted for being perceived as gay or weak. Inmates who failed to address staff as “sir” would be punched.
Witnesses said baths were either scalding hot or freezing cold. A number of them said if they were ill, painkillers could be taped to their forehead and they would be told to run around until the pill had dissolved.
Ombudsman Adrian Usher (left) and senior investigator Richard Tucker
Medomsley leaders at every level ‘failed’
Mr Usher said: “Leaders at every level at Medomsley, including the warden, failed in their duty to protect the best interests of those under their charge. Either staff in leadership roles were aware of the abuse, in which case they were complicit, or they lacked dedication and professional curiosity to such an extent as to not be professionally competent.”
“The knowledge of abuse by the Prison Service, the police, the Home Office and other organisations of authority was ignored and dismissed. The authorities failed in their duty to keep detainees safe,” Mr Usher added.
The report highlights a complaint, written in 1965, of an officer striking an inmate with “a distinct blow”. The handwritten response below dismisses it as “playfulness”.
Staff ‘took law into own hands’
A letter sent to all detention centre wardens in 1967 refers to the “increasing number of complaints of assault” and warns of staff “taking the law into their own hands” with discipline going “beyond the legitimate”.
The police officers who delivered 17-year-old Eric Sampson to Medomsley in December 1977 told him he was going to “get the hell kicked out” of him there, he said.
Eric Sampson called the centre ‘hell on earth’
Victim – ‘I could have been killed’
“The violence I had done to me was terrible. I could have been killed in there,” said Mr Sampson. “Every day and night was hell on earth for the full nine weeks.
“With all the abuse, and obviously the sexual abuse, it totally ruined my life. It should never have happened in the first place, or it should have been stopped.”
The inquiry spoke to 79 victims and witnesses.
Over 2,000 former inmates came forward to give their testimony to Operation Seabrook, a police investigation that led to five retired officers being convicted of abuse in 2019.
Lawyer David Greenwood, who represents victims of the abuse at Medomsley, said he has been contacted by men who were held at 20 other detention centres around the country, alleging similar violence.
“I think it was a systematic thing. These prison officers were cogs in a big machine which was designed, culturally or by training, to treat boys really badly,” he said.
Lawyer David Greenwood suggested abuse may have been widespread
Mr Greenwood is calling for a wider inquiry into abuse at all of the detention centres.
What have the police said?
The ombudsman’s report found police officers from both Durham and Cleveland police were “aware that physical and sexual abuse was taking place at Medomsley from as early as 1965 due to complaints of abuse made at police stations”.
It said officers who ignored, dismissed or took no action “failed in their duty to report and investigate crime”.
In response to the report, Durham Constabulary has publicly apologised for “the force’s historic failure to investigate decades of horrifying abuse”.
Chief Constable Rachel Bacon said: “This report makes for extremely difficult reading. It exposes shameful failings by police at that time: both to recognise that the physical violence meted out by staff at Medomsley amounted to abuse or to adequately investigate allegations by those victims who did have the bravery to come forward and report what happened to them.
“I am satisfied that policing standards at Durham Constabulary are worlds apart from those which sadly appear to have existed at that time.”
Cleveland Police said in a statement: “All victims of any form of abuse or exploitation should always be listened to and action taken to prevent any further forms of abuse, and we acknowledge this was not the case many decades ago.
“We know cases like this have a lasting impact upon victims and Cleveland Police has, and continues to, improve its service and support to all those affected by abuse, especially those in cases of children and young people.”
The ombudsman’s report pointed out that the victims have never received a public apology and the complaints process for children in custody remains the same today as it was at the time of the abuse.
Mr Usher said: “I leave it to all of the bodies in this investigation to examine their organisational consciences and determine if there is any action taken today, despite such an extended passage of time, that would diminish, even fractionally, the trauma that is still being felt by victims to this day.”
Thousands of job cuts at the NHS will go ahead after the £1bn needed to fund the redundancies was approved by the Treasury.
The government had already announced its intention to slash the headcount across both NHS England and the Department of Health by around 18,000 administrative staff and managers, including on local health boards.
The move is designed to remove “unnecessary bureaucracy” and raise £1bn a year by the end of the parliament to improve services for patients by freeing up more cash for operations.
NHS England, the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Treasury had been in talks over how to pay for the £1bn one-off bill for redundancies.
It is understood the Treasury has not granted additional funding for the departures over and above the NHS’s current cash settlement, but the NHS will be permitted to overspend its budget this year to pay for redundancies, recouping the costs further down the line.
‘Every penny will be spent wisely’
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is set to make further announcements regarding the health service in the budget on 26 November.
And addressing the NHS providers’ annual conference in Manchester today, Mr Streeting is expected to say the government will be “protecting investment in the NHS”.
He will add: “I want to reassure taxpayers that every penny they are being asked to pay will be spent wisely.
“Our investment to offer more services at evenings and weekends, arm staff with modern technology, and improving staff retention is working.
“At the same time, cuts to wasteful spending on things like recruitment agencies saw productivity grow by 2.4% in the most recent figures – we are getting better bang for our buck.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting during a visit to the NHS National Operations Centre in London earlier this year. Pic: PA
Mr Streeting’s speech is due to be given just hours after he became entrenched in rumours of a possible coup attempt against Sir Keir Starmer, whose poll ratings have plummeted ahead of what’s set to be a tough budget.
Mr Streeting’s spokesperson was forced to deny he was doing anything other than concentrating on the health service.
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He is also expected on Wednesday to give NHS leaders the go-ahead for a 50% cut to headcounts in Integrated Care Boards, which plan health services for specific regions.
They have been tasked with transforming the NHS into a neighbourhood health service – as set down in the government’s long-term plans for the NHS.
Those include abolishing NHS England, which will be brought back into the health department within two years.
Watch Wes Streeting on Mornings With Ridge And Frost from 7am on Sky News.
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