INDUSTRYNEWS
SPONSORED BY SECURIKEY
British High Street banks, concerned
about the increasing use of deposit lockers
to mask criminal activities, decided that
providing safe deposit facilities is not
helping to improve their public image and they are also no longer profitable. At
first Barclays simply stopped offering this
facility to its new customers. Then they
hardened their stance and began to tell
their customers to clear their boxes as they
intended to remove them all by the end of
2013. The Co-operative Bank had already
done so and HSBC has also stopped
offering safe deposit facilities to their new
customers.
‘Theives stole over £70,000
of gold jewellery from the
semi-detatched home of
a South Asian family’
GOLD THEFTS MORE COMMON
There is a very powerful tradition
amongst Asian communities to invest
in high grade ‘Indian gold’ It represents
.
a family’s wealth and is passed down,
generation to generation. Even quite
ordinary families in the streets of Bolton
or Southall could have £50,000+ in gold
stored for safe keeping in their local bank’s
safe deposit vault. Now they are told these
facilities are being withdrawn, forcing
them to keep their gold at home.
As the recession deepened, the price
of gold rose dramatically to over £1,000
an ounce. It didn’t take the villains long
to see what was happening. In Reading,
thieves stole over £70,000 of gold jewellery
from the semi-detached home of a South
Asian family. This type of break-in is
being reported in all areas with high
concentrations of Asian households.
Police in Leicestershire and Slough have
been running awareness campaigns but
stolen gold jewellery is difficult to trace
and recovery levels are poor.
‘Often mass-produced
products from the Far
East sold for under £45
on the internet’’
So - determined to protect their
investment - householders are often
tempted to buy cheap safes on line. These
are often mass-produced products from
the Far East sold for under £45 on the
Internet. A recent newspaper report
showed two criminals carrying away one
of these lightweight safes on a motor
scooter. As we know, bu