XL Bullies stolen to sell as ban sees dogs fetch up to £15k on black market
XL Bullies are being stolen to be sold on by criminals as dog experts warn government bans on the breed across the UK are creating a lucrative black market.
Police figures show a surge in the number of XL Bully dogs being snatched from their owners as the breed became the third-most stolen in the UK in 2023, despite not being in the top 10 the previous year.
A total of 2,290 dogs thefts were reported to police in 2023, a 6 per cent rise on the previous year. The soaring number of cases has seen an increasing number of owners enlist the helps of pet detectives and volunteer groups to help trace their animals.
The XL Bully ban was first announced in England and Wales by Rishi Sunak last September following a string of fatal attacks. It makes it illegal to breed or sell the dogs as well as to own them without an exemption certificate. Similar measures have since been adopted in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
DogLost, the UK’s leading free national lost dogs database, said it has seen a particular surge in reports of XL Bullies being stolen in recent months. With many used for fighting or to protection by criminal gangs, demand has been unaffected by the ban.
Experts told i security trained XL Bullies can command fees of up to £15,000, while more typically, puppies are being sold for around £5,000 and adult dogs for around £1,000.
Karen Harding, police liaison for DogLost, said dog theft had become a “high-income, low-penalty crime” for criminals and gangs, with demand meaning XL Bullies have also been illegally imported from as far afield as Russia.
She said: “Sadly, more and more police forces are only issuing crime reference numbers if there is video evidence of the theft, or eyewitnesses
“With the law as it stands, police do not have to investigate, they just log as if it was a phone, a bike or a wheelbarrow.”
DogLost said that gangs of thieves will historically target certain breeds “depending on what is ‘trending’ at the time”, highlighting an increased demand for poodle crossbreeds during Covid lockdowns that lead to a spike in thefts.
Ms Harding added that despite the XL Bully ban “there is still a call for these dogs”.
In January, the Government backed proposals to make the theft of cats and dogs a specific criminal offence – “pet abduction” – in England and Northern Ireland that could lead to fines or up to five years in prison.
Ms Harding said that under current laws pet theft is seen as no different to the theft of an inanimate object, adding that few pet thieves are caught – and that if they are, “sentencing does not fit the crime”.
She said: “In short, the police – massively busy and under-resourced – probably feel that their hands are tied, and they would be unable to get any decent custodial sentence even if they caught the culprits.
“So we are all campaigning for the law to be changed so that pets are recognised separately, and longer custodial sentences can then be awarded if taken to court”.
A total of almost 10,000 dogs have been reported as stolen to UK police forces since 2019, according to freedom of information data shared with i.
Thirty-five of the UK’s 43 police forces responded to the FOI request from security retailer Safe, which revealed that 1,842 of those 9,954 reports in the past five years were made to the Met Police.
Meanwhile, last year only one in six (16 per cent) stolen dogs were found and successfully returned to their owners – the lowest level since insurance company Direct Line began tracking the data in 2015.
Alongside XL Bullies, Direct Line said that English and French bulldogs were the most frequently stolen breeds and can be sold on for around £3,000.
Beverley Cuddy, a patron of Stolen and Missing Pets Alliance and founder of dog homing website Bark Angel, said: “Sadly, dog theft is still obviously very attractive to callous thieves, as figures show it being up 6 per cent on last year. Shockingly in 2023 almost three-quarters of pet owners didn’t get their stolen pets back.
“The Theft Act still treats this crime as no more significant than the theft of a mobile phone – so all our pets are at risk of abduction.
“We can make it harder for impulsive criminals by never leaving our dogs tied up outside shops and protecting them when at home. Statistics show most are stolen from our own gardens.
“The Pet Abduction Bill will hopefully punish dog thefts more severely, but more needs to be done to change the way dogs are treated as mere commodities by the law”.
