Petnappers, the scourge of suburbia

LONDON - For many victims, the first they know of becoming part of one of Britain's growing crime trends is an anonymous call or text message offering help in finding their missing cat or dog.

Within hours, the animal, whose missing status has often been advertised on neighbourhood lampposts alongside the word "reward", is miraculously found and a rendezvous set up to exchange the animal for cash.

According to new research, this a scenario played out with increasing frequency across Britain as 520 cats and dogs go missing every day, dozens of them feared stolen.

Missing Pets Bureau, which helps to trace missing or stolen animals, said it had seen cases of dog theft and ransom demands double in 12 months, and evidence of stolen pedigree pets being sold for profit.

Such "dognapping" cases rose by 141 per cent last year to 900 cases a year, according to the MPB. Another charity, DogLost, estimates that about 80 per cent of the 1300 cases it deals with involve suspicious circumstances.

The MPB, which only treats a missing animal as stolen if it has been registered by police, said it was convinced that there is now an established market based on the theft of domestic pets. In one recent case, investigators found a private "dog auction" was being held in Essex to sell pets, many of them suspected to have been stolen.

Simon Worsfold, director of the MPB, said: "The problem has grown from only a few hundred cases a year to several hundred reported thefts every week.

"Stealing a pet is now seen as a way of making easy money. When the animal is a pedigree, more often than not it will never be seen again by the owner because it is sold on through newspaper adverts or in a pub.

"But there is also a growing problem with dogs being stolen by people who then return when the owner puts up a reward poster and say they simply found the dog or bought it from someone else.

"The owner is often so grateful that they simply hand over the money, no questions asked. We would like to see more effort in catching these people and, where they are caught, pushing for them to be prosecuted."

Investigators say that thieves often target family pets and wait for a reward poster to put up around the neighbourhood before approaching the owner in order to collect a reward. Ransom cases, where the dog stolen and the owner contacted with a threat to pay money for the animal's return, remain rare.

The claimed spurt in dog theft was highlighted last week when a dog breeder and former Crufts judge paid £2000 ($6000) after three pedigree puppies were stolen from her home.

Tessa Gaines, 72, said she had to negotiate a deal through intermediaries after the dogs were traced to a traveller site near her home.

Campaigners said recent cases included a drug addict who stole a pedigree labrador in London simply to buy his next fix.

The problem has been given added publicity by a number of celebrity dog thefts. Among those to have had their animal stolen are Liz Hurley, Lionel Blair and Engelbert Humperdink.

Public perception that pet theft is a growing problem is reinforced by a separate study showing nearly one million Britons who have lost a pet in the last five believe it was stolen.

A survey found almost a million people had a pet go missing between 2000 and 2005. Nearly half of that number never saw their animals again.

Such statistics have helped to boost Britain's burgeoning market in pet insurance. Last year, premiums worth £265 million were paid by pet owners - an increase of £20 million from 2003.

Owners of Britain's estimated 14 million cats and dogs are being encouraged to have their animals "tagged" with a microchip and a DNA sample taken to identify them if they go missing.

But animal welfare campaigners warned that the scale of the dognapping industry may have been overstated. An RSPCA spokeswoman said: "There have certainly been a number of genuine cases of dog theft but we haven't seen any evidence that it is a widespread problem."

- INDEPENDENT