Luxury stores in London are offering customers non-branded bags to potentially help them avoid becoming the target of thieves.
The UK’s capital has in recent years been blighted by street crime, in particular in the borough of Westminster, which is home to luxury stores popular with visitors from the Middle East.
In November 2021, there were about 1,000 thefts in the borough but last month there were nearly 1,500.
Thieves using electric bikes regularly snatch phones and other valuable items from unsuspecting victims, while gangs of "Rolex rippers" have swiped luxury watches from the wrists of their owners.
High-end stores such as Harrods offer unbranded bags to customers. A representative told The National they are being given directly to those making small purchases in the food hall.
“Should a customer elsewhere in the store prefer an unbranded bag, this may be provided on request,” they said.
Van Cleef & Arpels, a French luxury jewellery company, also confirmed “anonymised bags” as well as branded ones are offered to customers shopping at its Maison outlet in New Bond Street, as well as at counters in Harrods and Selfridges.
“The Maison offers, for all its clients, the possibility of having anonymised bags for more discretion if they wish, in addition to the Van Cleef & Arpels classical bag,” said a spokesman.
A customer at a Vodafone shop in the upmarket area of Hampstead said staff had advised her to hide her new phone in a plain bag.
The shop assistant told her there had been a "spate of thieves waiting outside the shop and literally taking Vodafone bags out of shoppers’ hands". Staff decided to advise shoppers to hide the bag or place it in another, she told The Telegraph. "He said they were on scooters banked up on the pavement.”
The Metropolitan Police has said enforcement action against street crime has led to personal robbery being reduced by 13 per cent and theft is down 14 per cent in London since the start of this year.
The force has promised to use facial recognition technology and more “boots on the ground” to combat the problem of violent robbery.
The new head of a task force specifically focusing on crime in the West End said police are determined to make the area “the most hostile environment to operate anywhere”.
