Police are encouraging stores in Dumbarton to set up a radio system to tackle the ever-growing problem of shoplifting.

Gangs of professional thieves who travel around Scotland stealing have been targeting the town, according to local cops.

Constable Chris Griffiths, who walks the beat in Dumbarton, said over £3,500 of goods had been stolen from shops in the town centre in the last month, and that there were 29 reports of shoplifting - which is almost one every single day.

Speaking at last night's Dumbarton East and Central Community Council meeting, in the town's St Augustine's Church Hall, PC Griffiths revealed nine of the thefts happened at Asda, Boots suffered seven times, there were five at B&M, two at Morrison’s, one at M&S, four at RS McColl’s and one at Poundland.

Eleven suspects have been arrested and there are 14 named suspects which police are in the process of attempting to track down.

Constable Griffiths added that officers have CCTV footage for almost all of incidents, which happened between January 12 and February 11.

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Constable Griffiths, who is based at Dumbarton Police Station, said: “Morrison’s detected two known criminals who were part of a family of shoplifters who travel throughout Scotland and steal on bulk.

“They nearly got away with £769 worth of stuff, mostly alcohol, but got caught by a member of staff.

“Two people were also targeting supermarkets with what we call ‘push throughs’.

“This is when they fill their trolly with alcohol, joints of meat, electric toothbrushes, shavers, then cover them with bedding and push the trolley through the door without paying.

“They did that in B&M, went back a few days later to try again and got caught, so they went to Asda and Morrison’s where they got caught again.

“Staff at the supermarket just turf them out and tell us about it later when they should really inform us at the time, it is an attempted theft after all.”

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Constable Griffiths plans to organise a meeting with supermarket managers to encourage them to share information with each other about shoplifting incidents, because many of them currently don’t do this.

Only Asda and M&S regularly communicate with each other at the moment he said, adding: “They need to at least have each other’s phone numbers so that when they get a shoplifter they can pass information around.

“That way they become stronger together.

“A radio link would be even better because then they don’t need to phone each other.”

He also agreed with the vice president of the community council, Jim Crosthwaite, who suggested that supermarket staff could set up a WhatsApp group as a way to communicate instantly with each other.