Rich are shunning crime-ridden West, says developer Nick Candy

[MenInG]

Wealthy investors are leaving the West and big cities like London because of high crime rates and the teaching of transgender issues in schools, according to a British property tycoon.

Nick Candy, who, with his brother Christian, built the One Hyde Park development in Knightsbridge, west London, said that the capital had “big problems” with knife crime and congested roads putting off buyers.

He said that Dubai in the United Arab Emirates was instead attracting investors as “one of the new capitals of the world” with a value system in the Middle East that “sometimes is better” than in the West.

Speaking to Bloomberg UK’s In the City podcast, Candy, 50, said: “The flow of capital to Dubai has changed. People are going, ‘I’m fed up with the crime in the countries I live in.’

“It’s not just London, it’s other countries around Europe and the West. Some of the values we once cherished in western countries are not the same values that we’ve got today and actually, who would have thought, the value system sometimes is better in the Middle East than it is here.

“I’m sorry to say that’s the case and people might not like that but when young kids in schools are being taught about transgender and stuff, I just don’t think it’s right.”

Candy, who is married to the Australian pop star and actress Holly Valance, came to prominence after investing an estimated £1 billion to build 86 luxury apartments next to Hyde Park in London. When sales began in 2007, the building broke records for price per square foot. His own two-storey, five-bedroom penthouse in the block was put up for sale in 2021 with an asking price of £175 million.

He told Bloomberg that he was planning significant investment in Dubai. Praising the infrastructure, education, healthcare and lifestyle there, he believed that sales could break his own records.

“I think there’s once in a generation where a new city or country will evolve and once in our children’s generation a new city or country will evolve — and this time its Dubai and the UAE.”

Asked if Dubai could be the “new London”, he said: “The calling card that was so good about London maybe a decade ago or even 20 years ago I think has changed.

“If you’re from China and you want to send your kids to university here or be educated here and you’re reading about the crime on our streets and knife crime — would I send my daughter to a place like that? Crime affects everyone and I just think we haven’t managed to get a handle on that.”

Candy, who was born in London and grew up in Surrey, said that busy roads were an issue in the capital, citing a car journey of four miles from Chelsea to the City of London that took him an hour.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...dden-west-says-developer-nick-candy-h3msp92xr

 

[MenInG]

“It’s not just London, it’s other countries around Europe and the West. Some of the values we once cherished in western countries are not the same values that we’ve got today and actually, who would have thought, the value system sometimes is better in the Middle East than it is here.

“I’m sorry to say that’s the case and people might not like that but when young kids in schools are being taught about transgender and stuff, I just don’t think it’s right.”

Interesting point of view

 

[ElRaja]

definitely the case that the quality of life in the west is declining, 2012 london olympics was the peak, has been downhill for ten years now. as people get poorer crime increases.

but the case for the middle east is overblown, i dont think the career, professional, business opportunities etc are nearly enough to compete with the west, and the most vocal middle eastern expats tend to have significant business interests in the west still.

what the UK needs, and pbly the west as a whole, is a return to politics of pragmatism, there are problems that need to be solved, and then problems which dont really exist, but are made political for point scoring by creating psuedo solutions to them.

i dont have a clue where this change will come from however

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

“It’s not just London, it’s other countries around Europe and the West. Some of the values we once cherished in western countries are not the same values that we’ve got today and actually, who would have thought, the value system sometimes is better in the Middle East than it is here.

“I’m sorry to say that’s the case and people might not like that but when young kids in schools are being taught about transgender and stuff, I just don’t think it’s right.”

Interesting point of view

It's what most people think even if they don't want to admit it publicly these days.

 

[Angrez Pakistani]

It’s not a coincidence that he is using the culture war narrative in the middle of London’s worsening housing crisis. It’s all a big dog and pony show to distract people from main issue, which is the lack of housing options available for the working class people in London.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

It’s not a coincidence that he is using the culture war narrative in the middle of London’s worsening housing crisis. It’s all a big dog and pony show to distract people from main issue, which is the lack of housing options available for the working class people in London.

Just wondering, why can't working class people move out of London to find work if there's a housing crisis in the capital?

 

[Energy]

The big cities will always have that charm despite the issues. London, Paris, New York, Tokyo et al will always remain popular because they create opportunities, and not simply follow.

Even for Pakistan, Karachi is the big city despite all of its issues. Even during PMLN glory days when Lahore infrastructure was significantly improved, you had people talking about Lahore eventually taking over as the prime city. But deep down everyone knows that Karachi is still the city with most opportunities.

 

[IMMY69]

He's clearly talking up his market, which now seems to be Dubai ��

 

[Waq]

He's clearly talking up his market, which now seems to be Dubai ��

Yep, 100% agree.

Candy is a businessman and he would never put people off London in a public interview where he sells property unless his current target market was another destination.

 

[Angrez Pakistani]

Just wondering, why can't working class people move out of London to find work if there's a housing crisis in the capital?

Then who’s going to pick up garbage from bins? Who’s going to sweep the streets? Who’s going to be working in the local stores? This whole mindset is a bit absurd.

 

[Angrez Pakistani]

Working class people moving out of London is not a solution. It’s a recipe for disaster.

 

[MenInG]

Working class people moving out of London is not a solution. It’s a recipe for disaster.

Not just the rich

See this article

It's too huge to add here but I will add some parts of it

==
How Dubai became a magnet for young professionals fleeing high-tax Britain

Emirate hailed for offering higher wages, better weather and a break from Britain’s endless culture war

UK families and young workers moving there see Dubai as far more than a playground for the rich CREDIT: eye35.pix / Alamy Stock Photo
After securing an MBA at one of Europe’s most prestigious business schools, Luke was hoping to earn a large wage from strategic consulting.

But when the 30-year-old Briton returned to London to look for work, he was greeted by a jobs market and economy that felt bleak.

With the UK expected to be the worst-performing large economy in the world this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, a slowdown in global deal making has led banks in the City to slash thousands of jobs.

“A lot of companies are worried about global economic shocks, are cutting costs and seem just generally wary about making offers, particularly to expensive hires,” says Luke, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely.

Yet the other region he looked at – the Middle East – seemed to be experiencing few such issues, with one location in particular standing out: Dubai.

Luke has now accepted a job at an international consulting firm paying around £100,000 a year, and hopes to work there for a few years while saving money to use back at home to buy a house.

Because of Dubai’s lack of income tax and lower housing costs, he also expects to have plenty of fun.

“Dubai just seems to have a lot of opportunities right now, and you are taking home a lot more of your pay,” adds Luke. “I want to have an adventure.”

It’s a calculation many British workers are making today as they decide to up sticks and resettle in the Gulf city state in search of a higher pay packet and a better quality of life.

For years, Dubai has been portrayed as little more than a playground for tourists and the rich, its extravagantly tall skyscrapers and vast, air-conditioned shopping centres looking vapid next to Europe’s historic old towns.

Yet expats today say the city has matured. And some parents now even see it as a better place to work and raise a family than Britain, where stagnation grips the economy and taxes are at a post-war high.

That includes the very wealthy. Nick Candy, the property tycoon behind the luxury One Hyde Park development in Knightsbridge, this week declared that he was fed up with crime in London and the teaching of controversial transgender issues in schools.

“The flow of capital to Dubai has changed. People are going, ‘I’m fed up with the crime in the countries I live in’,” he told Bloomberg.

“Some of the values we once cherished in Western countries are not the same values that we’ve got today and actually, who would have thought, the value system sometimes is better in the Middle East than it is here.

“I’m sorry to say that’s the case and people might not like that, but when young kids in schools are being taught about transgender and stuff, I just don’t think it’s right.”

Experts, recruiters and schools, meanwhile, also say they are seeking an influx of UK graduates who are tired of London’s sky-high property prices and taxes that can swallow close to half of their monthly pay.

“It’s definitely a push back to what has been happening in the UK,” says Romell Gumbs, of Dubai-based advisory firm Creative Zone.

“People are sick of paying more and more tax on their income, on houses, especially when there has been so much pressure due to the pandemic.”

About 90pc of Dubai’s population is already made up of expats. The government is trying to make the city into a cosmopolitan, entrepreneurial hub linking East with West – a sort of modern Constantinople.

“Since the 1990s, they have sought to present Dubai as socially liberal, while being politically very conservative and tolerant,” says Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the RANE Network.

“One should not have a political opinion when they are in Dubai – that's an excellent way to get deported – but the emirate otherwise tries to project a stable, business-friendly and luxurious image. And to a certain extent, they have succeeded.

“I think everybody feels like they've stepped a class up when they move to Dubai. If you're middle class, you feel a little bit more upper-middle class, because so many facilities are designed to be more luxury-minded.”

The emirate has also been at pains to keep out of geopolitical struggles - refusing to impose sanctions on Russia, for example - and suppresses crime, making it one of the safest cities in the world, he adds.

But in contrast to the past when some companies saw it as a dud posting, today Dubai’s sunny weather, glamorous lifestyle and light-touch regime are attracting a growing number of Western enthusiasts.

Official statistics for how many Brits are living in Dubai are hard to come by, but at one stage they numbered an estimated 240,000 – making them the largest British contingent in the Middle East.

Thousands of them lost their jobs during the pandemic and returned home. But recruiters, schools and business groups say the numbers have rebounded in the past 12 months.

“We are seeing a huge influx of expatriates from all over the world but notably, I think, from Western Europe and very notably British people,” says Nalini Cook, head of global research at ISC Research.

Murtaza Khan, a Middle East managing partner at immigration law firm Fragomen, credits this surge to the introduction of several new kinds of visa, most notably the “digital nomad visa” for remote workers and a “freelance visa” for self-employed people – which were both rolled out during the pandemic.

These are seen as a game-changer, because expats no longer need a local sponsor.

For many workers - be they bankers, project managers, teachers or nurses – perhaps the biggest temptation is higher wages and an absence of income taxes.

Those moving for jobs in healthcare, they can boost their salaries by 20pc while those in finance can get a 30pc boost, says Filip Rideau, Manpowergroup’s area manager for the Middle East. For some specific roles the upgrade is even bigger.

One senior director at a schools business in Dubai says whereas years ago they would receive hundreds of applications per teaching job, they now receive “thousands”, and many of them disgruntled Brits.

“They are fed up with the conditions in English schools, with the politics, with Ofsted, with all of their income being eaten up by mortgage payments,” the director adds.

A teacher in Dubai can earn a starting salary of £2,750 per month, on top of a housing allowance, furniture allowance, private healthcare, school fees for their children and travel expenses. This compares to a starting salary of around £2,250 per month for London teachers – which can be reduced to around £1,700 after taxes and pension contributions.

Salaries are often higher in Dubai – and with no income tax payable, the effect on take-home pay is even greater.

For example, a finance director earning £70,000 to £100,000 per year in the UK could earn £132,000 to £183,000 in Dubai, according to Gareth El Mettouri, market director at recruitment firm Robert Half.

Taking in the pay increase and lack of tax, it means a mover at the top end of this bracket could roughly triple their monthly take-home pay to around £15,000.

“There is something very satisfying when you get a paycheck and it is actually your paycheck - and hasn’t been reduced significantly,” says Simrin Chana, the head of legal and compliance for Zurich Insurance in the Middle East who has now lived in Dubai for almost 10 years.

The 39-year-old decided there were better opportunities in Dubai as a junior lawyer in London a decade ago. Like others, she has come to love the hot weather, the ease of getting around and the cosmopolitan lifestyle.

“The city is very international,” she adds. “You don’t feel by yourself, because there are lots of expats doing similar things, trying to build something.”

Pay packets also go further than in London because accommodation costs less. An average apartment in Dubai costs about £21,700 per year or £1,800 a month in February, according to research by CBRE.

By comparison, the average rent in London stood at £2,500 in the first three months of 2023, figures from Rightmove show.

The contrast with Britain’s economic situation is also stark. The economy grew last year by 7.6pc and by 2033, the country's Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum wants to double both the size of Dubai’s economy and its population.

“There aren’t many regions globally which are posting this level of growth,” El Mettouri points out.

The World Bank has forecast the UAE’s economy will grow by another 3.2pc in 2023. This will be a substantial slowdown, but the contrast with the UK is extreme, where the economy is expected to contract this year.

This disparity is often brought up by job candidates, El Mettouri says. “Their energy costs are going up, their salaries aren’t rising in line with inflation, companies aren’t paying bonuses and people can’t save as much in the UK.”

In the first three months of 2023 alone, UK applicant numbers for jobs in Dubai were up by a fifth year on year, according to Robert Half.

Family-friendly

What is also remarkable is Dubai’s transformation into a family destination. “One thing which we are seeing which I haven’t seen before is families looking to relocate, with school age children, without roles in place,” says El Mettouri.

One couple relocated from Manchester with their four and six-year old children in January before they had applied for jobs. The husband had been working as a finance director earning £100,000 a year in the UK.

Within four weeks of moving to Dubai, the father had secured a new job earning about £144,000 a year. This meant his post-tax pay more than doubled. His new employer also pays for both of his children’s school fees - a common perk at many Dubai companies.

Daniel Goldstein, the founder and chief executive of Elements, a UK-based talent consultancy, is among parents to have made the move. His company has outposts in the US, Singapore, Malaysia, Sweden, and since 2021, Dubai.

The 45-year-old was on holiday in the city with his son, who was then in Year Six, when Britain entered its second pandemic lockdown in 2020. They extended their stay while his son enrolled into school remotely and Goldstein has since become a UAE resident, which means his income is tax-free. But he says his decision was not only about money.

“The sun and the opportunity to be outdoors a lot more were one of my biggest goals with the move,” he says.

"My son and I play padel [tennis] together all the time and I’m picking up more golf.”

His son will soon be joining him. “He called me in December and said ‘Dad, what am I doing? It’s cold. The Tubes aren’t running. I can’t do anything. It’s just not fun in London anymore’.”

Working families can generally expect to pay less for school fees, maids and nannies as well.

The average day fee for a private school in England is about £3,350 per term, according to data website Snobe. In Dubai, school fees in 2019 ranged between £2,800 and £14,000 per annum, according to the Edrabia website.

The average monthly salary for a nanny obtained through an agency was between £760 and £1,300 in 2020, according to Gulf News.

By comparison, a full-time, live-out nanny in London working 45 hours a week in 2021 could expect to earn between £3,450 and £4,500, according to Bubbles.

Those who want to can also live a glamorous life in Dubai, with plenty of activities to keep them busy. “I was surprised that there’s actually quite a lot to do on weekends,” says Anil Stocker, an entrepreneur and founder of fintech firm Kriya Financial who temporarily moved to Dubai during the pandemic and is now thinking of going back.

“You can go to the desert, you can go trekking, you surf and do outdoor activities like cycling in the desert – there is a fantastic cycling course – so there was a lot more depth to it than I expected.”

The lack of crime is another factor that many expats bring up. “Kids are getting mugged outside school all of the time in London but here crime is non-existent,” says Goldstein.

“You live in these really lovely communities where crime and security are not even concerns. I have my front door open the whole time and I never lock my car. In Queen’s Park, [London] I had two cars stolen from outside my house.”

Fellow expat Chana agrees. “You can leave your phone, your bag anywhere – you'll get them back. It really is somewhere where you feel safe and secure when going out.”

London, meanwhile, had more reports of bladed weapons than any other city last year, according to data previously published by the Office for National Statistics.

Between October 2021 and June 2022, knife offences recorded by the Metropolitan Police increased from 10,605 to 11,232.

This has also proved to be a key dealbreaker for Candy, the property tycoon married to Australian pop star and actress Holly Valance.

“If you’re from China and you want to send your kids to university here or be educated here and you’re reading about the crime on our streets and knife crime — would I send my daughter to a place like that?,” the London-born entrepreneur asked.

Candy himself has reportedly been visiting Dubai on a monthly basis to hold business meetings, sometimes accompanied by his wife and two daughters.

The tycoon’s firm, Candy Capital, has set up a joint venture with the Dubai World Trade Centre to develop a “super prime” real estate project that will be used for both residential and commercial purposes.

And he is not the only one. Owing to light-touch regulation, the pleasant lifestyle and generous incentives on offer, the emirate is steadily attracting a growing cohort of British entrepreneurs and start-ups.

As part of its bid to roll out the red carpet for high-tech businesses, the UAE offering support for office costs, expedited visa applications, easier access to finance and even introductions to local businesses and regulators, says Kriya’s Stocker.

Katy Holmes, general manager of the British Business Group in Dubai, which supports British-owned companies, says there’s been a huge surge in firms looking to set up in the city.

“It’s incredible, to be honest. In May last year, we were onboarding a new member every other day. In January, it was every day. In February, it was two a day.

“It really does feel like a land of opportunity at the moment.”

According to Creative Zone, Dubai’s largest set-up advisory firm, the UK recently surpassed India as the source of the highest number of people setting up companies in the UAE.

Key factors driving the boom include greater Brexit red tape – which some see as removing the benefits of being based in the UK – as well as the pandemic shift to remote working and the new visas on offer. But firms may also find it is not difficult to convince staff to move.

“The main strengths are zero tax, zero crime and great infrastructure,” says Ilya Kondrashov, chief executive of venture capital fund Quantum Light, who moved permanently to Dubai during the Covid crisis.

“You know, I don't find myself travelling anywhere for longer than 20 minutes, wherever I want to go. In London, I used to go from Holland Park to our office in Canary Wharf and it took more than an hour, which is pretty stressful.”

Entrepreneurs in Dubai only need to pay for a trade licence to get set up. These cost between AED 6,000 and 50,000 (£1,300 to £11,000) and on the basis of that they can get visas for their family and relocate.

“There is just a level of efficiency,” adds Goldstein. “We set up the entire business for about £5,000.” For every new person they recruit from the UK, there is a £3,000 visa fee and the company pays for their medical insurance.

VAT stands at just 5pc, while corporation tax will be introduced in June at only 9pc – a little more than a third of the 25pc rate in the UK. It will only be payable for businesses crossing a profits threshold that is expected to be set at AED 375,000 (about £81,000).

Employees can also find home comforts if they want to: Even Waitrose and Marks & Spencer have outposts in Dubai.

‘Rollercoaster capitalism’

Not all things familiar to Brits will be welcome, however. As in London, an influx of Russian oligarchs to Dubai is helping to push up property prices dramatically.

They have leapt 50pc higher in the past two years alone, says Simon Baker, managing director of Haus & Haus, a Dubai estate agent.

In the prime market, price growth has been 108pc, according to Knight Frank estate agents.

There are other downsides that will also give many pause for thought, including the country’s poor approach to human rights and authoritarian legal system.

It means foreigners who get caught up in court disputes should not necessarily expect fair treatment, while raising complaints in the workplace can be more risky than it is in the West.

“It's not a country that is a rule of law country,” says Middle East analyst Bohl. “It's kind of rule by edict.

“They have laws, but they're selectively enforced based on political considerations. British expats tend to get a bit lighter treatment… but sometimes the Emirati feel like making an example.”

And although the emirate has become much more tolerant over the years – for example, ditching screens at restaurants open for non-Muslims during Ramadan – gay people still face discrimination. Same-sex sexual activity is a crime, while gay couples cannot hold hands or kiss in public without facing the risk of prosecution, imprisonment and even death.

Women cannot always expect fair treatment either, while the loss of livelihood for foreign workers can be swift and brutal in the event of economic turmoil.

“It is very much rollercoaster capitalism there,” adds Bohl. “They are on an upswing right now, but there are very few safety nets. And that's important to kind of keep in mind if things turn sour.”

British exodus risk
Britain is still a net magnet for foreign talent, but that doesn’t mean a steady loss of skilled workers to Dubai shouldn’t raise alarm bells.

“We have a lot of people of very high calibre still coming into London,” says Paul Johnson, chief economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

“And looking over history, there have been concerns over the last 20 years about high levels of migration to the UK. But of course, if you go back to the 1970s, there was a lot of worry about a ‘brain drain’ – about people going elsewhere.

“Whether there was really solid research on that, I don’t know, but it was part of a general sense of national decline.

“But if you are in a world where your brightest and best are looking elsewhere, even if that’s only a small number, it’s a slightly worrying straw in the wind.”

For Max Marlow, director of research at free market think tank the Adam Smith Institute, the trickle of graduates and families to Dubai is an obvious consequence of high taxes, soaring inflation, punishing rents and – for families – extortionate childcare costs.

“I'm a graduate, fresh out of university, and I see almost half my my salary go towards HMRC, even before other things such as rent and the cost to maintain what is, really, a [poor] standard of living for a country which seems to think of itself as rich,” he adds.

“It’s easy to reach the conclusion: Why should we stick around here?”

For Luke, the graduate consultant, it was clear where the better deal was. “The UK will always be there for me to go back to,” he adds.

“But right now, it just seems like the opportunities there are in Dubai.”


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/30/dubai-uk-professionals-high-tax-britain/

 

[SalimBhai]

100k is pretty low for staring in banking. In nyc it’s close to 180k or more. . Also don’t British people have to pay taxes on income earned outside UK?Americans do. Also if you think housing is cheap in dubai you are sadly mistaken. .

 

[LongHorn]

100k is pretty low for staring in banking. In nyc it’s close to 180k or more. . Also don’t British people have to pay taxes on income earned outside UK?Americans do. Also if you think housing is cheap in dubai you are sadly mistaken. .

Housing in Dubai is cheaper than Central London or the Bay Area, but more expensive than most American cities

The majority of middle class Desis working in Dubai commute from Sharjah or Ajman, takes up to 2.5 hours in peak traffic from Ajman to Jebel Ali, the main industrial area

 

[LongHorn]

His new employer also pays for both of his children’s school fees - a common perk at many Dubai companies.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/04/30/dubai-uk-professionals-high-tax-britain/

This part is absolute **.

If anything, many companies used to pay school fees previously but have stopped doing so except for higher management level workers. The best companies always paid school fees, but your average Dubai local company wont pay school or often housing anymore except for the top echelon

The job market is extremely competitive with salaries on a downward spiral for many companies. Some examples include 3000 Aed job offers for Accountants (that is around 800$ monthly) in a city where even a bedspace (bedroom shared among 4 or 6 guys) costs 250$+

Dubai is a great place if you are a hedge fund manager or someone already earning a lot in London or NYC in a highly skilled position

 

[SalimBhai]

Housing in Dubai is cheaper than Central London or the Bay Area, but more expensive than most American cities

The majority of middle class Desis working in Dubai commute from Sharjah or Ajman, takes up to 2.5 hours in peak traffic from Ajman to Jebel Ali, the main industriali have area

I have lived in dubai. To be honest I had a good time. But it’s not a place for long term. I strongly prefer the usa and am happy my father decided to move

 

[MenInG]

I have lived in dubai. To be honest I had a good time. But it’s not a place for long term. I strongly prefer the usa and am happy my father decided to move

That was then.

You should visit it now. This is a next level in city living.

Of course, I am talking about white-collar jobs.

 

[SalimBhai]

That was then.

You should visit it now. This is a next level in city living.

Of course, I am talking about white-collar jobs.

Yes I have been recently also I have nothing against it. Wherever you are happy is fine with me. My point is I prefer usa. As I am citizen here. Plus I have to pay taxes wherever I go. On your other point myself and my father both prefer the old dubai from 70s and 80s. Dubai grew too fast and kinda lost its soul. Even in the 80s my father was a ceo of a company and had a very good lifestyle. But in the long run usa was better he thought. And I agree. Good city no doubt

 

[SalimBhai]

If you are going from the subcontinent to dubai. Yes huge difference in lifestyle. I can’t say about UK but nobody is going to usa to dubai. At this moment . Future I don’t know .

 

[MenInG]

From Dailly Telegraph

===
This is an interesting article and also a dating indictment against Britain

If you’re under 50, it’s time to jump ship – get out of Britain while you can

The UK seems incapable of solving its own issues, and things are set to get worse

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[sweep_shot]

West is being destroyed by radical left (so-called woke crowd).

I also want to move to Middle East at some point. Canada is going down the drain.

 

[FearlessRoar]

Indian CEOs Complain To UK Leader About Mugging, Rolex Thefts In London

Indian businessmen met with British Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Delhi and complained about rising crime in London, citing the theft of Rolex watches, a UK publication reported today.

According to the Financial Times, Devin Narang, a renewable energy entrepreneur, listed crime in London as one of the biggest concerns of India's corporate bosses at the meeting.

Mr Narang, who is the founder of the Delhi-based Sundev renewables company, said at the meeting that people are being mugged in the heart of London -- Mayfair.

"All CEOs in India have had an experience of physical mugging," the Financial Times quoted Mr Narang as saying.

Speaking to the Financial Times, he said that Indians do carry expensive things, but the "police not responding is a matter of concern".

"You don't want to go to a city where you're likely to be mugged in the streets. It doesn't make you feel comfortable. You can walk anywhere in Delhi and you won't be mugged," he said.

Rising Crime In London

London witnessed a massive rise in street crime last year. The 'theft from a person', a category that includes stealing watches, mobile phones, and handbags, reportedly increased by 27 per cent last year as compared to 2022.

About 29,000 watches have been reportedly stolen in London in the past five years.

Rising crime has now become a political issue in Britain ahead of an expected national election this year.

Undercover Officers Target Luxury Watch Robbers In London

Last month, the police said that they conducted an undercover operation to target watch robbers and succeeded in reducing such robberies.

The Metropolitan Police said on January 17 that the two operations ran from October to December 2022 and March to October 2023 within Soho - which along with the other hotspots of Mayfair and the south part of Kensington and Chelsea, accounted for 40 per cent of all watch robberies in London at the time.

The first operation from October to December 2022 saw a drop of 28 per cent in watch robberies across the three boroughs by the end of that three-month period, while the second operation from March to October 2023 reduced watch robberies by about 15 per cent across the three boroughs.

Karnataka Ministers To Protest In Delhi, BJP To Reply With Counter Demonstration.

Source: NDTV

Indian CEOs Complain To UK Leader About Mugging, Rolex Thefts In London

Indian businessmen met with British Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Delhi and complained about rising crime in London, citing the theft of Rolex watches, a UK publication reported today.

www.ndtv.com

 

[Champ_Pal]

When you bring thousands and millions of poor from third world countries with little to no skills and dump them in big cities, everyone in the city will suffer.

There should be proper rules for immigration. You cannot just take in thousands of people into your country just because they stand at the border. The blame must go squarely on the leftwing lunacy of sanctuary cities and open border policy. They want to destroy the Western civilization and the European hegemony. A total leftist-marxist woke ideology. That is the only way they can stay in power.

I always find it funny when they show thousands of illegals at the Mexico-US border and call it humanitarian crisis. No one questions why they are even coming. If the Border patrol forces turn these illegals back, they will stop coming there. But the Border patrol provides them with water, food, clothing and will eventually take them in and ferry them to various cities.

 

[sweep_shot]

Can't blame them.

West is too soft on criminals. They should learn from gulf states (how to handle criminals).

 

[Champ_Pal]

Can't blame them.

West is too soft on criminals. They should learn from gulf states (how to handle criminals).

When criminals are tagged as victims of systemic oppression and racial bias, there is no hope.

 

[MenInG]

On a rainy March afternoon, two undercover police officers cut across central London at breakneck speed to a medley of crime scenes and crimes-in-the-making.

The officers were scouring Soho for luxury watch thieves, a growing priority for the police, when they were diverted first to a man wielding a knife outside a school, then to an assault at Oxford Circus and on to a store where a woman had been robbed.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen from one minute to the next,” said the 34-year-old constable in the passenger seat of an unmarked car, one of a specialist team tackling a spate of watch thefts in the UK capital that has sent jitters as far as Delhi and the watchmakers of Geneva.

In the past two years, London’s Metropolitan Police has assigned officers, data and intelligence resources in an effort to curb the rising incidence of luxury watch theft that has found a pernicious niche in the UK capital.

The phenomenon has been driven by social media, which has raised the profile of watches as status symbols, the comparative ease with which they can be stolen and a recent boom in the pre-owned market.

Emmeline Taylor, criminologist at the City of London university, said extreme inequality in London also lies behind a surge in acquisitive crime.

While the police have notched up successes, and numbers are down on a peak year in 2019, they have yet to dent the trend.

According to The Watch Register, a crime prevention database, 7,344 watches were reported stolen to the Met last year, with a total value of £44mn, up from 6,015 in 2022. The company also flagged an “alarming” rise in the use of violence during thefts.

The crime wave is impinging on the UK capital’s image. On a recent trip to India, shadow foreign secretary David Lammy had his ear bent by the business elite over Rolex robbery in Mayfair and the alleged lack of response from the Met.

While mobile phones are snatched in far greater numbers, watch robbery is higher profile and, in some instances, can lead to serious violence. Last year, four men were jailed for the fatal stabbing of music manager Emmanuel Odunlami while stealing his fake Patek Philippe Nautilus.

Detective chief Inspector Scott Ware, who heads the unit combating violent crime in central London, defended the Met’s response. Last year, in undercover stings at targeted hotspots where wealthy clientele gather, police arrested 32 men. Most of them were charged.

Ware said that across the three boroughs where operations took place, the number of watch thefts fell to 361 between March and October, from 429 during the same period in 2022.

“As much as I try to create an environment which is peaceful and safe for people, for criminals I want that very same environment to be hostile and for them to fear that they are next,” he added.

He also noted the risk inherent in ostentatious displays of wealth. In London some of the world’s richest people rub up against some of England’s poorest.

“You wouldn’t put £200,000 of cash on your wrist. Well, you’re kind of doing that with some of these watches,” he said.

While most offenders were what he called “organised opportunists” there was growing sophistication in the way they planned robberies, stalked victims and zoned in on particular brands.

“When you recover a phone from someone who’s just carried out a watch robbery, there are usually hundreds of images of watches and hundreds of messages sent to people that they horse trade with,” Ware said.

Katya Hills, managing director of The Watch Register, said that compared with the market in stolen art, the one in luxury watches is much hotter, the goods simpler to transport and the rewards more immediate.

While watches were often sold on for 50 per cent or less of their value, that was not always so. Thieves, she said, targeted models that were in high demand but that had been discontinued or for which there were long waiting lists.

For example, the 2022 white gold “Patek Nautilus 5811” retails at £56,000, against an average value on the pre-owned market of nearly three times that.

The Watch Register holds the DNA of 100,000 watches, which it shares with retailers and police forces across the world as part of efforts to disrupt onward sales. It estimated the total value of lost or stolen watches it tracks at £1.5bn. The group said it located an average of four stolen pieces a day.

Its model is gaining traction as watch crime surges globally. Richemont, the luxury goods group that owns Cartier, Baume & Mercier and Piaget among other brands, has set up a free app, Enquirus, for customers to register, record and search for lost items.

The idea, said Frank Vivier, Richemont’s chief of transformation, was to move beyond the analogue era where insurance companies, watchmakers and police communicated little and victims were left in the dark.

“We are very, very concerned about [watch theft] becoming an industrial strength problem,” he said. To disincentivise it, “you need the whole industry to work together to attack it from every angle”.

Police are taught the principle of the “golden hour” where a speedy response is critical in tackling crime. Officers on the frontline in Soho said with watch thieves they had minutes to act, if that.

“To steal someone’s watch can take seconds. The ratio of risk to reward is great,” said one of the patrol officers, against the din of background police radio chatter.


FT

 

[PakLFC]

The East is the future. The west is now a sinking ship with crime being rampant then there is the migrant problem. At the moment it is still better then most third world countries. Within the next ten years people could be leaving it in very high numbers. The question is where does the common working class person living in the west go?