Rich Londoners Hire Security, Leave Rolexes at Home Over Knife Crime, Robberies

‘The reality is that there are areas of London that are lawless. They’re also no-go areas,’ a police expert said.

A police van outside the gates of the British Museum in London on Aug. 23, 2023. Leon Neal/Getty Images

LONDON—One of the world’s most popular tourist destinations is struggling with rising levels of robbery, usually involving knives, which has led to an increase in demand for bodyguards, experts say.

Will Geddes, a former bodyguard and managing director of International Corporate Protection Group, which provides personal security teams in London, has witnessed a major change in the city.

“I get regular calls from the United States, from the Far East, from places like China and Hong Kong, from clients who say ’my family or my sister or my girlfriend or whoever is going to be flying over to London, how safe is it? That’s entirely alien to how it was 10 years ago,” he told The Epoch Times.

Geddes said robbery gangs often wait outside some of London’s swankiest nightclubs and follow victims down the street before pouncing on them.

Knife crime in London rose by 86 percent between 2014 and 2024, according to a report published in July by think tank Policy Exchange. The crimes were concentrated in areas such as the West End, which features tourist destinations including Oxford Circus and Trafalgar Square.

“London is in the grip of a crime wave of robbery, knife crime, and theft,” the report stated.

The U.S. State Department warns American tourists on its website, “Be aware of pickpocketing, mugging, and ’snatch and grab' theft of mobile phones, watches, and jewelry.”

In July, 24-year-old Blue Stevens was fatally stabbed outside a five-star hotel in the Knightsbridge area of central London after taking his girlfriend on a date.

Three men were arrested in connection with the attack and released on bail, according to a July 14 statement.

“While we retain an open mind around motive, one line of enquiry is now that this may have been a targeted attack,” the Metropolitan Police stated.

Blue Stevens, who was stabbed to death in the Knightsbridge district of London on July 9, 2025, in this undated photo. Metropolitan Police/PA Media

In a separate attack, five men from north London were found guilty on Aug. 1 of murdering a Greek tourist and conspiracy to rob.

Prosecutors said five men targeted 26-year-old Antonis Antoniadis in July 2024, after he arrived at a nightclub in a Lamborghini sports car, wearing a Versace watch and carrying a Lacoste bag.

“It seems that when that group of five saw Antonis come out of the club, those robbers thought they had found a suitable target,” prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones said.

The men followed Antoniadis’s Uber in a stolen car. After arriving at their destination, Antoniadis and his friend struggled to find a door key. The men approached him, wearing hoods and balaclavas.

Antoniadis hit one of the robbers with a brandy bottle as they tried to rob him. He was punched and kicked, then stabbed, causing injuries that led to his death in a hospital two weeks later.

All five attackers face mandatory life in prison when they are sentenced in October.

“Tackling violent crime is our top priority,” said Cmdr. Hayley Sewart, London Metropolitan Police lead for knife crime.

“Every month across London we are making over 1,000 more arrests than we were last year, with knife-related crime (16 percent) and robbery (13 percent) both falling significantly,” Sewart said in an emailed statement to The Epoch Times.

Five robbers—Shian Johnson (left), Amin Alliche (center), Sofian Alliche (right, top), Alfie Hipple (right, center), and Joshua McCorquodale (right, bottom)—were convicted of the July 7, 2024, murder of a Greek tourist in London. Metropolitan Police

‘Jaded Weariness’

Geddes said there is a “degree of jaded weariness” among wealthy people in London.

“They simply won’t wear their favorite watches. They won’t wear the Patek Philippes, they won’t wear their Audemars Piguets, they won’t wear their Rolexes, just really in fear,” he said.

“I had one client who was walking off Sloane Street [in central London], and it was 8 o'clock in the morning, and a guy comes up behind him and hits him over the head with a machete, causes him unbelievable amount of stitches.”

He said the victim fell to the ground unconscious and the robber took a watch worth 60,000 pounds (about $80,900) from his wrist.

Norman Brennan, a knife crime and policing commentator who served 31 years with the police in London, told The Epoch Times that London is no longer safe.

“The reality is that there are areas of London that are lawless. They’re also no-go areas,” Brennan said, adding that the perception of crime is so high in some areas that nonresidents do not want to go there or allow their family members to go there.

Brennan, who served six years in a London police squad dedicated to investigating robberies, said people are afraid. He said there are teams of professional criminals out hunting for potential victims.

“The violence that they use, or are prepared to use, is ultimate, in so much as they will kill a victim to get their watch or expensive jewelry and money,” he said.

A police van is seen outside the gates of the British Museum in London on Aug. 23, 2023. Leon Neal/Getty Images

Stop and Search

Among the Policy Exchange report’s several recommendations is for the police department to increase stop-and-searches. It also urges the government to amend current legislation “to explicitly allow ‘without suspicion’ searches to take place in the most intense violent crime ‘hotspots’ at any time.”

The report suggests that those convicted of robbery “receive an immediate custodial sentence of at least three years.”

Paul Birch, a former London police officer, said he believes that the rise in knife crime and muggings is partly caused by officers’ reluctance to stop and search people “for fear of being labeled as racist.”

“Many criminals know this and have taken advantage,” he told The Epoch Times.

In recent years, lawmakers including Labour Member of Parliament Diane Abbott have said that black people are unfairly targeted in London when police carry out stop-and-searches for drugs, knives, or other weapons.

The chair of the Police Federation in London, Rick Prior, was removed from his position in April for a breach of Metropolitan Police Federation standards. Birch said Prior was sacked after he suggested in a television interview that officers were worried about being labeled racist while patrolling areas of London.

Sewart said that although “we do not agree with all of the analysis” in the Policy Exchange report, the police department has called for justice reform.

“Reducing knife crime requires a whole-of-society effort, and we will consider any initiative that seeks to make this happen,” she said.

The leader of Britain’s Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, said during an Aug. 4 news conference that people in the capital are afraid.

“I dare you to walk through the West End of London after 9 o'clock of an evening wearing jewelry. You wouldn’t do it. You know I’m right,” he told a journalist. “And that’s just in London, let alone what’s happening in so many other parts of the country.”