{"id":314011,"date":"2025-08-03T08:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T08:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/314011\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T08:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T08:02:09","slug":"welfare-payments-up-by-e4-billion-last-year-dw-08-03-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/314011\/","title":{"rendered":"Welfare payments up by \u20ac4 billion last year \u2013 DW \u2013 08\/03\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-format=\"MASTER_LANDSCAPE\" data-id=\"73032882\" data-url=\"https:\/\/static.dw.com\/image\/73032882_${formatId}.jpg\" data-aspect-ratio=\"16\/9\" alt=\" Woman putting a bottle of schnapps in a bag\" style=\"padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; max-height: 0;\"\/>Shoplifting is on the rise in GermanyImage: Carsten Milbret\/imageBROKER\/picture alliance<\/p>\n<p>Retailers incurred losses of some \u20ac3 billion ($3.5 billion) through <a class=\"internal-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/germany-crime-shoplifting-organized-crime-poverty\/a-73145599\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">shoplifting<\/a> in 2024, a fifth more than in 2022, according to the German Trade Association (HDE), the umbrella body for the German retail\u00a0sector.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the t-online website, HDE managing director Stefan Genth noted a growing problem with highly professional criminal gangs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Groups of offenders drive &#8230;\u00a0through inner cities, steal valuable products \u2014 perfume, shoes, electronics \u2014 and sell them on the gray market,&#8221; Genth said.<\/p>\n<p>He said there were also more aggressive individual offenders who attacked shop staff if they were detected.<\/p>\n<p>Genth also said that almost all offenses went unreported.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Retailers make a complaint to police, only for state prosecutors to drop the case for efficiency reasons. As a consequence, many retailers are frustrated and don&#8217;t report thefts to the police,&#8221; he said, adding: &#8220;For that reason, the number of unreported cases is extremely high: 98% of shoplifting offenses are not registered.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Genth called for changes to laws, more investment in security and more powers for the judiciary.<\/p>\n<p>He also said that his association had found no connection between the increasing number of self-service checkouts and the rising shoplifting rate so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shoplifting is on the rise in GermanyImage: Carsten Milbret\/imageBROKER\/picture alliance Retailers incurred losses of some \u20ac3 billion ($3.5&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-314011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114963791539555058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}