Police say shop theft has fallen by more than a third at hotspot locations in Gedling borough following recent operations.
Officers have been working closely with partners and engaging with businesses, and said this had been an instrumental factor behind an overall 34 per cent drop in shop theft at five hotpot locations in 2025. The hotspots named by police are Co-op stores in Westdale Lane East and Westdale Lane West, Gedling; the Tesco store in Carlton Hill; Co-op store in Main Street, Burton Joyce; and TK Maxx at Victoria Retail Park, in Netherfield.
Officers identified, then targeted the most prolific local offenders responsible for high levels of offending and these individuals were subsequently arrested, charged, and brought before the courts.
Persistent offenders have also been made subject of bespoke community behaviour orders (CBOs) that – once granted by magistrates – prohibit them from doing certain things such as entering specified shops and visiting certain areas.
Intelligence has revealed that organised gangs from home and abroad have been travelling by car throughout the borough and typically targeting supermarkets and other out-of-town retailers.
Last month UK retailer Boots, national police intelligence unit Opal, and crime intelligence software platform Auror developed a high-quality intelligence to build a case against 27-year-old Nicoli Fruntasu – who was part of a gang that targeted Boots stores, including the one at the Victoria Retail Park in Netherfield, between May 29 and December 12 last year.
Working alongside other suspects, Fruntasu hit Boots stores in Nottinghamshire, Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Harrogate, Cheltenham, King’s Lynn, Boston, and Leeds, stealing thousands of pounds of fragrances.
Fruntasu went on to plead guilty to 16 counts of shop theft, committed between May 29, 2025 and December 12, 2025, and was jailed for two years when he appeared at Nottingham Crown Court on Tuesday, January 13.
Auror’s direct to police reporting function enables store staff to report crimes directly within minutes in real time and making it quicker and easier for businesses to capture and share key evidence and information about incidents, such as CCTV footage, offender and vehicle descriptions, and witness statements.
Gedling borough’s beat team and PCSOs have also been using analytical data to identify peak times, repeat locations, and patterns of offending to target their high-visibility patrols in hotspot locations.
Sergeant Mohson Hussain, of the Gedling south neighbourhood policing team, said: “It goes to show that when we adopt an intelligence-led approach to tackling crime, we can genuinely make a difference – as evidenced by these impressive results.
“We still have some serious work to do to tackle shop theft in our hotspot locations and I want to reassure people that we will continue to maintain high-visibility patrols and deploy all necessary resources to tackle and reduce retail crime and to improve community safety across Gedling south and beyond.”
