A Crime Alert for the residents of South Sefton from Merseyside Police.
Burglaries
Between the 15th and the 28th May burglaries or attempted burglaries took place in the following locations:
BLUNDELLSANDS Burbobank Road South, Margaret Road, New Fort Way
BOOTLE Beatrice Street (2), Southport Road (workshop)
CROSBY Sharples Crescent, Alexandra Road, Stuart Road, Cambridge Avenue, Ince Avenue, Berwick Drive
SEAFORTH Sandy Road
WATERLOO Somerville Road, Crosby Road South (garage), Oxford Drive, South Road
Attempted burglaries 3
Insecure properties or entry gained by unknown means 5
Car keys and vehicles stolen 5
News from your Community Policing Team. A message from Inspector Ian Jones
‘I am pleased to say that South Sefton has been enjoying a lower than normal amount of crime and in particular burglaries and theft from motor vehicles. I was worried with the warm nights that people may leave their windows and doors unlocked which would result in a rise in these type of crimes. I am happy to say that we have only had a handful of burglaries where windows and doors have been left insecure so hopefully this trend will continue.
My team have conducted a further 15 warrants in the last 2 weeks with drugs located in a number of them leading to significant arrests. This hopefully shows that we are acting on your information and also disrupts those who are trying to ruin our communities.’
+252 problem has arrived in the North West
The police in Sweden have received over 10,000 reports about the +252 telephone number. A similar problem has appeared in the US where it was known as the ’One Ring Scam’.
The Swedish Police suspect it is an attempt at fraud. Residents who were targeted say they received missed calls during the middle of the night and when they called back they were connected to answering machines and hold music, apparently designed to keep them on a premium rate line as long as possible. The public were warned to avoid answering calls from unknown foreign numbers and have urged scepticism if called unexpectedly from abroad after an apparent telephone scammer from Somalia targeted Swedish phones. While answering a call from abroad does not cost extra, outgoing calls to the number does.
On 2th May 2018 a resident in West Lancashire bordering the Merseyside area received a very short call on his mobile during the night. The following morning, when he found the missed call on his phone starting with +252, he put the full number into Google and it came up with a warning message advising people not to reply and giving the reasons as above.
Sweden and the US may be a long way from Merseyside but now the problem has appeared too near for us to ignore.