Thefts reported in 2025 at decades-low levels, says home affairs minister
Last year saw thefts drop by almost 800 over 2024
The number of thefts reported across the country last year fell to the “lowest in decades”, according to Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri.
Last year saw some 4,428 reports, a decrease of 790 over 2024, when there were 5,218 reported cases, Camilleri told parliament on Monday.
The figures were provided in reply to questions by Opposition PM Ivan Bartolo, who asked how many theft reports had been made in Mosta and Attard last year. Mosta recorded 97 instances of theft, while Attard saw 45 reports.
Camilleri noted that the number of reports last year was lower than that in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The figures follow a year of heightened concerns about theft in various localities across the country, against a backdrop of historic safety in Malta.
In April last year, two Albanian men appeared in court charged with a spree of burglaries – a form of aggravated theft – of private residences across multiple localities, a month after police said they were increasing surveillance in the same localities following a string of reports.
The two men, who were believed to be part of an organised crime group, were alleged to have carried out burglaries in Mosta, Swieqi, Marsascala, Rabat, San Ġwann and Mellieħa.
The same month last year, Swieqi mayor Noel Muscat told a Nationalist Party conference it was time various localities introduced "sophisticated cameras" following a “spate of thefts”.
He advocated placing cameras in strategic positions around different localities.
In 2024, the EU’s law enforcement agency Europol reported that Malta was among the five countries most affected by “the most threatening” organised criminal gangs carrying out thefts and burglaries.