Gardaí have recorded a decline in many crimes in the first quarter of 2025, with reports of thefts, burglaries, and interference with vehicles all down.
There has been a dramatic 61% increase in fraud cases compared to the same period in 2024. Certain categories saw even more dramatic rises, with shopping/ online auction fraud and forgery/ false instruments both up by 200%. Deception increased by 159%, and account take over fraud by 128%. The growing trend of bogus tradesman fraud also saw a significant rise of 107%.
At the end of 2024, gardaí highlighted that there was likely to be an increase in volume for crime statistics under the ‘Fraud, Deception and Related Offences’ category as the high volume of section 19 referrals are processed.
While digital and economic fraud is up, property crime is down. Interfering with vehicle crimes plummeted by 38%, theft from person is down by 30%, and aggravated burglary dropped by 29%. Residential burglaries saw a 17% reduction.
An Garda Síochána attributes much of this success to initiatives like Operation Thor, a multi-strand approach launched in 2015 to tackle burglaries. In the 10 years of Operation Thor, recorded residential burglaries during the winter phase (October – March) have dropped by 75%.
