Opal, the UK police’s intelligence unit for serious and organised crime, will begin training sessions for retailers and police forces to better understand retail crime groups.

A new team has been created within Opal to help retailers and police forces understand how to refer intelligence so that it can be analysed and explored on a national scale.

The virtual training sessions will show retailers and businesses how to gather information which the unit says can be “instrumental” in identifying and tackling the organised crime groups responsible for a large proportion of retail crime.

Stephanie Coombes, head of intelligence at Opal, said that the organisation has carried out a similar process for other crime types and has benefited from having a national overview of what has occurred in the world of organised crime.

“You may have for example, an organised crime group targeting a chain of convenience stores in one region who are also using the same tactics in several different areas,” she said. “Without a national team to bring together that information, we could have several police forces each looking into the same group so Opal’s role is to centralise that intelligence, build a strong evidence package and then work with the relevant forces to deal with these high harm offenders.”

She continued: “We know that many retailers have intelligence built up through their own systems and processes and the training sessions aim to demonstrate how they can work with us to share that information so action can be taken.”

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