The thieves waiting outside King’s Cross and St Pancras stations are about to find the police waiting for them. The British Transport Police (BTP) are stepping up patrols around the two stations in response to a wave of luggage thefts, after officers concluded that organised criminal gangs are systematically targeting wealthy passengers arriving in London.
The crackdown follows several recent high-profile thefts from outside the transport hubs — including an incident in which a gang stole £600,000 of luggage from three members of the Abu Dhabi royal family.
London St Pancras Highspeed, which owns St Pancras station, said it had asked its security contractors to increase patrols around the station, and that it was working closely with the BTP, which has significantly increased its own presence.
Plain-clothes officers and louder warnings
The BTP is focusing on the problem through targeted operations involving plain-clothes officers. Officers found that criminals were waiting for passengers as they exited trains, picking out travellers whose luggage looked high value — brands such as Rimowa, Prada and Louis Vuitton — and then following them out to the taxi rank.
Thieves would grab bags the moment their owners’ backs were turned, often swiping a suitcase from the pavement while the victim was loading items into a car boot, or reaching into an open boot while passengers were distracted.
In response, officers will now wait at the same spots and follow suspected criminals, hoping to catch them in the act. Police believe the offending is not opportunistic, but the work of organised and experienced criminal gangs — which means anyone caught is typically given a tougher sentence.
Travellers are also being warned more directly. Every ten minutes, station announcements are timed to loudly warn passengers that “bag thieves operate in this area”.
“Working tirelessly to crack down”
Robert Sinclair, chief executive of London St Pancras Highspeed, said: “It’s concerning to us. Sadly, it’s a function of the current society that we’re living in. We’ve stepped up significant patrols, we’re working with our own security teams, and the British Transport Police have significantly increased their patrols and the number of people they have round the station to prevent this activity.”
Superintendent Nick Sedgemore, of the British Transport Police, said: “We know how upsetting, inconvenient and costly luggage theft is and we are working tirelessly to crack down on this sort of offending at King’s Cross and St Pancras.”
“Our specialist plain-clothes officers are conducting regular patrols around the stations in response to these reports in order to identify and intercept offenders and hold them to account, and we have a number of tactics available to us — not to mention over 150,000 CCTV cameras covering the network.”
Private chauffeurs are also being trained to be extra vigilant about luggage while picking up passengers outside the stations.
A string of high-value thefts
The thefts have repeatedly made headlines. Ramzi Rafadi was jailed for 12 months in April after targeting a Brazilian family who had arrived in the UK on holiday. In that incident, plain-clothes officers had followed Rafadi and watched as he pretended to retrieve items from a condiment table before taking hold of one of the family’s designer suitcases and discreetly wheeling it away. The bag and its contents were worth about £5,000 before the watching officers swooped in to arrest him.
Last year Brittny Button, the wife of the former Formula 1 driver Jenson Button, saw thieves run off with her suitcase containing £250,000 of jewellery and designer handbags after the couple had returned to London from a city break in Paris.
In June two men were jailed over the theft from the Abu Dhabi royals. None of their loot has been recovered, but one of the thieves, Abdel Aitkebir, 35, said he had sold one of the cases and its contents to a market trader in south London for £10,000.
Station crime figures
According to figures reported by The Times, Euston railway station recorded the most criminal activity for a UK station last year, at 1,536 offences — 650 of those being baggage theft. King’s Cross was second with 1,479, London Bridge third with 1,074, St Pancras fourth with 1,035, and Birmingham New Street fifth with 958.
Police are urging passengers to keep bags close and report anything suspicious to station staff or BTP officers.
