Credit: STATEC

Luxembourg's statistics institute SATEC has recently published a report on the theft and fraud victimisation in the Grand Duchy.

According to this report, based on the results of the latest safety survey conducted by STATEC in 2019/2020, 28% of the population has suffered theft with or without violence or consumer fraud in the last five years. In addition, thefts and frauds that affected the whole household, such as burglaries, vehicle thefts and credit card fraud, affected 31% of households.

The report further presented individual or household risk factors that could favour victimisation such as income, education level and age.

The number of victims of non-violent robbery has increased by almost a third

17% of the population of Luxembourg said that they had been the victim of a non-violent theft in the last five years and 18% of residents had been affected by consumer fraud. Consumer fraud refers to situations where the person has been defrauded while purchasing or paying for a service or good and as a result has paid more for it than its true value.

Robberies are serious offenses and affect 2% of the population: 11,902 residents have suffered violent robberies in Luxembourg or abroad over the past five years. Compared to the last wave of the survey in 2013, the figures for violent thefts have halved while the number of people affected by non-violent theft has increased by 4%. The percentage of people who have experienced consumer fraud remains stable at a relatively high level.

Credit card and online banking fraud are the most common crimes

Some offenses affect the whole household, such as burglary, vehicle theft or fraud with bank cards or online banking services, because the vehicle is no longer available for the whole household following a theft or because all of the household's resources are affected by bank fraud. Bank fraud is the most common, just under one in five people say they or a member of their household has been a victim of it in the past five years. These incidents include: carrying out fraudulent banking transactions online (with 67%, these frauds are the most widespread crimes), falsification and use of a bank card (25% of these frauds) and use without permission for lost or stolen bank cards (8% of these frauds).

The detailed report is available online via: https://statistiques.public.lu/fr/publications/series/regards/2022/regards-11-22.html.