Premier League stars and their wives are being targeted by criminal gangs who raid their homes and transport their luxury goods to Ireland before swapping them for drugs and guns.
Career criminals linked to the feared Dublin-based ‘Gucci Gang’ target players living in Cheshire and Merseyside and reportedly team up with Albanian crooks to rob valuables including watches worth up to £500,000 and designer jewellery.
Premier League aces including Jack Grealish, Raheem Sterling, Alexander Isak and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain have all seen their houses burgled for hundreds of thousands of pounds in recent years.
Criminals stalk through footballers and their WAGs’ Instagram pages to find expensive goods before assembling teams of thieves to launch million pound raids.
Aware that domestic burglary charges carry lower sentences than armed bank robberies, they prey on properties belonging to Premier League players – often attacking when the house is occupied so security systems are down.
The thieves use local teams to drive in groups to the houses and have lookouts and getaway drivers, who help them flee in minutes, stationed outside.
They use telescopic ladders to access upper floors and immediately target master bedrooms as players often leave expensive items in their walk-in dressing rooms.
Once the raid is complete, goods dealers are paid to guarantee the haul is genuine.
Grealish and partner Sasha Attwood are recent victims and lost £1million worth of watches and jewellery after thieves raided their Cheshire mansion.
Attwood and ten members of his family were watching Grealish play for Manchester City inside the £5.6m property near Knutsford when the gang struck in December 2023.
She raised the alarm, but the gang fled within minutes.
The ordeal left the England star ‘traumatised’ but police dropped the case after failing to identify any suspects.
The England star admitted shortly after the break-in that it had shaken his family badly, writing on Instagram: ‘I can’t begin to explain how devastated I am over the burglary that took place at my home.
‘My family means the world to me and nothing is more important than ensuring their safety. This has been a traumatic experience for all of us, I’m just so grateful that nobody was hurt.’
A criminal source told The Sun: ‘These are career criminals who know the risks of being arrested for a domestic burglary are a lot lower than for an armed robbery on a cash van.
‘They are well organised and not afraid to hook up with Albanian criminals who are experts in carrying out reconnaissance and finding weak spots in security systems.’
The stolen items are then sent to Scotland by car and then across the Irish Sea to the Gucci Gang – a criminal syndicate led by the imprisoned Glen Ward with links to the notorious Kinahan cartel.
‘They either keep the stuff if they want it, or sell it in Ireland or Europe where they have big links in Spain,’ the source added.
Ward, known as ‘Mr Flashy’ due to his taste for designer clothes, is serving a five-and-a-half year sentence for firing a semi-automatic gun at a Dublin house party.
The stolen goods are either sold locally or transported to Europe from the Irish capital.
Criminals prefer to sell their haul in Euros because the biggest note is €500 as opposed to £50.
Multiple Premier League clubs, including Manchester United, have hired security teams to guard players’ homes.
While some stars have their own, round-the-clock mobile response teams, ready to respond in the event of an emergency.
Others have installed wide-ranging security measures at their houses.
A number are said to have spent hundreds of thousands on panic rooms. In many cases they are effectively a steel box, which feature secure lines and panic alarms which will work even if outside wires are cut.
Virtual perimeters, known as geofencing, are also commonplace. Geofencing is effectively an invisible wall on the boundaries of properties which are monitored by CCTV and motion sensors.
Some players hire drivers who can double-up as protection officers, while live-in bodyguards and house sitters are common.
As are trained animals including attack dogs such as Alsatians and Rottweilers.
Liverpool forward Isak is said to have spent £30,000 on a Dobermann guide dog after a family of professional Italian thieves travelled to Newcastle to rob the Swede of £10,000 in cash, £68,000 worth of jewellery and his £120,000 Audi RS6.
Sterling, Grealish, Marcus Rashford and Jake O’Brien also own guard dogs.
But protective measure have failed to fully thwart thieves, with a string of players continuing to fall victim.
Sterling, who had £300,000 of valuables robbed when he was in Qatar during the 2022 World Cup, confronted masked burglars with a knife to protect his children during a terrifying break-in in November.
And in July, Gillingham midfielder Bradley Dack and model Olivia Attwood saw their house burgled for the third time, prompting them to sell up and move out.
Molly-Mae Hague and boxer Tommy Fury were victims of an £800,000 burglary in their Manchester apartment in 2022, while former Liverpool and Arsenal midfielder Oxlade-Chamberlain and his partner, Little Mix’s Perrie Edwards saw their home in Cheshire burgled the same year.
