Asian Gold Theft

Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FIN/25/002860/L

 Version Date: 10/03/2025

The Performance Analysis Department have provided the following information.

Performance Analysis have searched the Niche Crime Universe for crimes occurring between 01/01/2021 – 03/02/2025, with Main Crime Groups of ‘Theft, Dwelling Burglary, Burglary Other, Robbery’ and excluding any with the SC Description keyword ‘attempt’, in theory reducing the number of attempted thefts from the data.

To obtain such specific data, keyword searches including ‘Asian Gold’ have been used within the OEL Text and Occurrence Summary.

Data Limitations

Please note that with regards to keyword searches, these are not always accurate and any occurrences which use different keywords would not be included, similarly there is a chance of false positives being included when using this method.

The property data was extracted by linking the occurrences from the crimes query and adding in filters for a property link classification of ‘stolen’ and a general property type of ‘Jewellery’. This is because the original search had a lot of results contained within such as cash, which would not have been relevant.

With regards to the property value, there is a recording field for this, however it is not always used. The property value given is the ‘original value’ as there was more data in this field than ‘current value’. None of the given years had a complete set of property values.

I would like to request:
•           How many incidents of "Asian gold theft" have taken place/have you dealt with in your jurisdiction, since January 2021?

• To clarify: "Asian gold theft" is the theft of gold from Asian families. Criminals are targeting Asian families knowing that many have gold, for cultural reasons.
• Please could you specify the number of incidents, and the value of gold stolen, if available?

Property original value

 Please could you break down the incidents by year, i.e. 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025?