One of the Baltic poor dwarfs send its criminals as expats, Europa can do a nice thing an kick all criminal Lithuanians back to their pygmean - like 'state'
In the EU, Lithuanians have the highest percentage of their expat population in jail.
From around 330,000 Lithuanian expats in the EU, around 2,000 are in prison, according to Eurocrimes estimates.
This percentage is at 0.59 - almost double the next highest countries, Latvia and Romania, on 0.39 per cent. This is not a massive number. This is not a crime wave. There is a margin or error here. But it does show a trend. And it doesn't look good for the Baltic state.
Lithuanians are highly involved in thieving gangs. Most of the goods are stolen in the other EU countries and brought back to Lithuania. The gangs target northern Europe - especially the UK, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Ireland, but they have spread out across the continent.
We quizzed Lithuanian criminals with experience in Italy, Germany, France and the UK to give a snapshot on the lifestyle that has led to this top crime rate.
Lithuania: gangs 'traffic' thieves to the west
Algirdas has met about 100 Lithuanians behind bars abroad - a big number, he says. The only motivation for Lithuanians committing crimes is money, says Algirdas. In the UK, almost all of Algirdas’s friends were criminals. They were shoplifting and stealing cars.
“At first they'd steal expensive cars and drive them back to Lithuania, but once that alley was blocked [by the EU and state authorities], Lithuanians started disassembling cars and selling them in parts,” says Algirdas. “Lithuanians are very creative, they'll come up with a way.”
In one day, a thief can steal goods from a store worth about £1,500. The prime goods are: phones, computers, gadgets or building tools, says the ex-con.
“There are lots of Lithuanians here, but Lithuanians know how to wriggle out of sticky situations and they get caught very rarely,” says Algirdas.
In the UK, Lithuanians either sell the hot goods to local dealers or send them back home. “Buyers always know they are buying stolen goods, they just aren't worried about it,” he adds.
For many years, mini-buses packed with stolen goods were travelling to Lithuania, to be sold in local markets.
Since he was 16, Egidijus Mačiulis has been a thief. He has been in prison in Germany, the UK and is now locked up in Lithuania.
“It was always small thefts – from shops and houses,” he says. “I was too lazy to work, even though I had opportunities.”
Egidijus came to the UK when he was 28 in 2006. “There were some friends. Similar guys, colleagues, we started stealing. You get all the opportunities there.”
Mačiulis says Lithuanian criminals are in organised groups. Bosses recruit youngsters directly or through blackmail and extortion.
“In the beginning, they promise money and later the youngsters end up being in debt and have to work for them,” he says. “It’s a form of control. Later, they get forced into committing various crimes until they end up in prison.”
Lithuanians criminal bosses target vulnerable groups, often from the countryside, to pinpoint accomplices to steal and fence goods in the EU.
To recruit, the bosses go to rural or small towns in Lithuania, where there is huge social exclusion, structural poverty and a high unemployment rate, says Karolis Zibas, research fellow at Vilnius’s Institute of Ethnic Studies. Gangs also target orphanages - a strategy that happens in Romania.
They will start with a test. Give the youngster a job to steal from a local village shop. The recruiter will say, 'let’s go for a drink, have a smoke of weed', and tell the kid:
‘You’re our guy, now steal a chocolate bar from a local shop,’ and after that, something more expensive.
“They try to get into a familiar relationship,” says Zibas. If they succeed, they send the kids to Norway or the UK.
“In that case - the victim does not think they are a victim anymore,” says Zibas. “They think they are doing it by their own will.”
In the region, Lithuania has a larger migrant network than Latvia and Estonia, and a higher level of poverty than its neighbour Poland. Around 22 per cent - 600,000 people in Lithuania - are on the poverty line.
“People are being brought from Lithuania to other EU countries not for forced labour or the modern slavery of sexual exploitation, but for implementing criminal activities,” says Zibas. “Part of the Lithuanian prisoners are not criminals, but victims of human trafficking.”
Algirdas argues there are no such gangs operating from within the UK, but from Lithuania. “In a lot of cases their bosses live in Lithuania and just send these people to England to commit crimes,” he says. “The 'command centre' sits in Lithuania and sends about 50 people, who don't know one another, to the UK. The boss has enough information about the UK and once he finds a thief, he gives him enough money to start his life abroad and strict instructions about crimes to be committed.”
“The EU doesn’t really know what Lithuanians are”
In the EU, Lithuanians have the highest percentage of their expat population in jail.
From around 330,000 Lithuanian expats in the EU, around 2,000 are in prison, according to Eurocrimes estimates.
This percentage is at 0.59 - almost double the next highest countries, Latvia and Romania, on 0.39 per cent. This is not a massive number. This is not a crime wave. There is a margin or error here. But it does show a trend. And it doesn't look good for the Baltic state.
Lithuanians are highly involved in thieving gangs. Most of the goods are stolen in the other EU countries and brought back to Lithuania. The gangs target northern Europe - especially the UK, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and Ireland, but they have spread out across the continent.
We quizzed Lithuanian criminals with experience in Italy, Germany, France and the UK to give a snapshot on the lifestyle that has led to this top crime rate.
Lithuania: gangs 'traffic' thieves to the west
Algirdas has met about 100 Lithuanians behind bars abroad - a big number, he says. The only motivation for Lithuanians committing crimes is money, says Algirdas. In the UK, almost all of Algirdas’s friends were criminals. They were shoplifting and stealing cars.
“At first they'd steal expensive cars and drive them back to Lithuania, but once that alley was blocked [by the EU and state authorities], Lithuanians started disassembling cars and selling them in parts,” says Algirdas. “Lithuanians are very creative, they'll come up with a way.”
In one day, a thief can steal goods from a store worth about £1,500. The prime goods are: phones, computers, gadgets or building tools, says the ex-con.
“There are lots of Lithuanians here, but Lithuanians know how to wriggle out of sticky situations and they get caught very rarely,” says Algirdas.
In the UK, Lithuanians either sell the hot goods to local dealers or send them back home. “Buyers always know they are buying stolen goods, they just aren't worried about it,” he adds.
For many years, mini-buses packed with stolen goods were travelling to Lithuania, to be sold in local markets.
Since he was 16, Egidijus Mačiulis has been a thief. He has been in prison in Germany, the UK and is now locked up in Lithuania.
“It was always small thefts – from shops and houses,” he says. “I was too lazy to work, even though I had opportunities.”
Egidijus came to the UK when he was 28 in 2006. “There were some friends. Similar guys, colleagues, we started stealing. You get all the opportunities there.”
Mačiulis says Lithuanian criminals are in organised groups. Bosses recruit youngsters directly or through blackmail and extortion.
“In the beginning, they promise money and later the youngsters end up being in debt and have to work for them,” he says. “It’s a form of control. Later, they get forced into committing various crimes until they end up in prison.”
Lithuanians criminal bosses target vulnerable groups, often from the countryside, to pinpoint accomplices to steal and fence goods in the EU.
To recruit, the bosses go to rural or small towns in Lithuania, where there is huge social exclusion, structural poverty and a high unemployment rate, says Karolis Zibas, research fellow at Vilnius’s Institute of Ethnic Studies. Gangs also target orphanages - a strategy that happens in Romania.
They will start with a test. Give the youngster a job to steal from a local village shop. The recruiter will say, 'let’s go for a drink, have a smoke of weed', and tell the kid:
‘You’re our guy, now steal a chocolate bar from a local shop,’ and after that, something more expensive.
“They try to get into a familiar relationship,” says Zibas. If they succeed, they send the kids to Norway or the UK.
“In that case - the victim does not think they are a victim anymore,” says Zibas. “They think they are doing it by their own will.”
In the region, Lithuania has a larger migrant network than Latvia and Estonia, and a higher level of poverty than its neighbour Poland. Around 22 per cent - 600,000 people in Lithuania - are on the poverty line.
“People are being brought from Lithuania to other EU countries not for forced labour or the modern slavery of sexual exploitation, but for implementing criminal activities,” says Zibas. “Part of the Lithuanian prisoners are not criminals, but victims of human trafficking.”
Algirdas argues there are no such gangs operating from within the UK, but from Lithuania. “In a lot of cases their bosses live in Lithuania and just send these people to England to commit crimes,” he says. “The 'command centre' sits in Lithuania and sends about 50 people, who don't know one another, to the UK. The boss has enough information about the UK and once he finds a thief, he gives him enough money to start his life abroad and strict instructions about crimes to be committed.”
“The EU doesn’t really know what Lithuanians are”
