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A pharmacy assistant has been jailed for three years and seven months for stealing £330,000 worth of diabetes-testing kits from his workplace. Abdul Nargoliya stole the products while working as a pharmacy assistant at a Lloydspharmacy counter inside a Sainsbury's supermarket in Fosse Park, Leicester where we was employed since 2012. The 30-year-old from Woodboy Street in Leicester was sentenced on Friday (May 26) after pleading guilty at Leicester Crown Court "to theft by an employee and concealing, transferring, converting criminal property". According to police an internal investigation launched at the pharmacy branch in July 2018 revealed that more than 22,000 test kits had been ordered since January 2017. Leicester Police said they identified Nargoliya as a suspect due to the time of the orders being placed matching up to his shift patterns. They arrested him in July 2018. Orders for the products were placed by telephone and CCTV footage showed Nargoliya handling them. It was noticed that during his shifts, the defendant would move the deliveries into a private consultation room and later leave with full carrier bags.

Merseyside Police have appealed for information from the public following the theft of "a large quantity" of medication from a pharmacy in West Derby this week. As per the police report, the burglary occurred in the early hours of Monday, 12 February, at the pharmacy situated on Deysbrook Lane. Authorities were informed at around 9:15 am. Based on the CCTV footage they have recovered, the Merseyside Police revealed that a man entered the pharmacy at around 1.20 am on 12 February and stole a large quantity of medication, including diazepam, codeine, co-codamol, pregabalin, zopiclone. These are prescription-only drugs that could cause "serious harm" if a significant amount is taken, the report said. The suspect, described as a white man of slim build, was wearing a grey coloured tracksuit and glasses, according to the police.

Nottinghamshire Police have released a CCTV image of a man over the theft of £1,400 worth of cosmetic products from a Boots store on Sunday (18 June). Police have made appeal they would like to speak to the man in the CCTV image to in connection with the theft from a Boots store in St Peter's Retail Park, Mansfield. On Sunday (18 June) boxes of eye serum were stolen from the store at around 10.35am. Officers would like to trace the man pictured as they continue with their inquiries into the theft. Police Constable Beth Richards, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: "Shoplifting is not a victimless crime. Offences of this sort can have a hugely detrimental impact on retailers and wider communities. "We have carried out initial inquiries but are now asking the public to assist us in identifying who this person might be - as he could help aid our investigation.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has pledged to tackle the rising 'epidemic' of shoplifting in the UK by giving police stronger powers through her proposed Crime and Policing Bill. The Labour MP's announcement follows a media report revealing that shoplifters are increasingly going unpunished, despite the number of recorded offences soaring to record levels. An analysis of official figures by The Times showed that police recorded 443,995 shoplifting offences in the year leading up to March 2024, a significant increase from 326,440 in the same period a decade ago. However, the number of shoplifters being punished has plummeted, with only 431 fixed penalty notices issued in the past year, a 98 per cent decrease from 2014. Fixed penalty notice is the lowest form of punishment used for theft of goods valued at under £100. Moreover, most police forces did not issue a single penalty for shoplifting last year.

Police chiefs are reporting significant progress in their battle against shoplifting epidemic, thanks to the newly established centralised police unit - Operation Opal. Launched earlier this year, Operation Opal is the national intelligence unit focused on serious organised acquisitive crime. The team collects evidence from CCTV footage, crime reports and other sources from all 43 police forces in England and Wales. Police chiefs believe that unit is starting to "turn the tide" against prolific shoplifters who are used by organised crime groups to steal goods en masse, The Times reported. The Operation Opal team has already identified 152 prolific people involved in organised retail crime within the first three months of the operation. Among those identified was Alexandru-Iulian Dima, a 25-year-old Romanian man who arrived in the UK last year.