Recent property crime in Griffith is believed to be fuelling the drug trade, according to police.
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Inspector Paul Smith from Griffith Local Area Command (LAC) has been pleased with recent arrests, but wasn’t celebrating just yet.
“There’s really been over the last month or six weeks a real connection between property theft between Griffith, Leeton and Narrandera, a real stream through, which we certainly believe is drug related,” Inspector Smith said.
“The connection between stolen property and drug supply is very evident and chances are if your house has been broken into and your property has been stolen you are the victim of drugs because it’s going to feed a habit.
“We’ve had a bit of a downturn in property crime in the last week, but we're not getting too excited or complacent.
“There's certainly still incidences of break and enters to residential and commercial premises and also steal from motor vehicles.
“In the last week we have had a couple of arrests, one in Griffith and one in Narrandera that has certainly impacted on that crime.
“Also, (there have been) some investigations in relation to the disposal of stolen property interstate, our target action group is continuing enquiries with Victoria police in relation to three Griffith locals who were intercepted in Shepparton on Friday in possession of stolen goods from NSW.
”We've received some very good information about those responsible for property theft not only in Griffith but across the LAC and certainly we appreciate that information and it has assisted us in the arrests we have made. We would like to encourage that information to continue. Property theft continues to be our major issue.”
Community assistance would certainly be welcomed with the most recent crime statistics for NSW showing a 30.1 per cent jump in crime from 2013 to 2014.
“There’s been some really good information from the public, timely information, about people being in suspicious places at suspicious times which allows our police to act,” Inspector Smith said.
Inspector Smith said people really needed to be aware of what was going on around their own neighbourhoods, and if something was out of the ordinary or didn’t look right, to call the police.
