Telegraph e-paper

Stolen watches ‘fetch more on black market than drugs’

By Ewan Somerville

SELLING expensive watches on the black market is “more lucrative than drugs”, a former watch dealer has claimed.

Paul Thorpe, who felt forced to retire from the trade after being violently robbed three times, said a week’s worth of stealing premium watches in London could make “more money than some people would earn in a lifetime”.

He told Sky News: “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.

“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.” Last year in London, more than 6,000 expensive timepieces were stolen, with criminals making in excess of £139million selling luxury watches since 2018.

Watch thefts in London accounted for 41 per cent of cases nationwide last year and between January and July last year, watch thefts in the capital doubled on the same period a year earlier.

A rising demand for second-hand watches has seen the value of the stolen goods soar, with some owners blaming a lack of production of new watches during Covid-19 lockdowns.

Such is the scale of the problem that Watch House, a prominent online auction house, drove a digital billboard around mugging hotspots in west London such as Chelsea and Mayfair urging owners to leave their expensive luxury watches at home.

Last month, police were searching for a “Rolex Ripper” after a man in his 70s had his watch stolen and was punched repeatedly in south London.

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2023-06-03T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-06-03T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://dailytelegraph.pressreader.com/article/281771338578599

Daily Telegraph