SCOTLAND'S MOST notorious shoplifting gangs are blatantly flouting the law and selling stolen designer goods at the country's biggest car boot sale two years after their activities were first exposed.

Some of the 10 crime clans involved in drug dealing, money laundering and other major crimes sold women's designer clothing, which had been clearly shoplifted, to an undercover Sunday Herald reporter at Blochairn market in Glasgow last Sunday.

Our reporter paid £4 for "casual couture" Matalan jogging bottoms which came with its original £10 label, and £5 for a BHS scarf which still had its £10 tag, a clear sign, according to the Retailers Against Crime, Scotland (RACS) campaign group, that they were stolen.

The Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) is set to show a "substantial" increase on the £80m lost by Scottish stores when its annual returns are published later this month after the credit crunch put legitimate goods beyond the reach of many households.

And unwitting retailers are losing tens of thousands of pounds after the public fuels the crime by returning the goods in exchange for cash refunds or credit vouchers, which are then sold over the internet for profit. RACS, a not-for-profit group which circulates CCTV images of 5000 shoplifters to 750 stores, claimed police were not interested in making arrests at the city's east end market after the problem was exposed by Channel Four's Dispatches.

RACS head, Maxine Fraser, said: "Nobody got in touch with me after the Dispatches programme. Shoplifting is a massive problem which can lead to the demise of a store group. If a small shop loses 10 jackets worth £5000, it could mean having to lay off staff or close down in the current climate."

Fraser added: "Retailers do an awful lot to protect themselves with tagging systems - although they can be removed by thieves - and also have electronic barriers, store detectives and CCTV, but what can they do against organised teams of six, including three people who can distract staff?

"The ringleaders of the gangs are rarely arrested because they don't go into stores. They use "bag men" and women. The largest team has got 100 people, but will only use six at a time when stealing goods to order."

Scotland's shoplifting gangs are led by a notorious Glasgow-based crime family who target Aberdeen and centres south of the border, leading police to label them the "M74 gang". The family has been known to strike closer to home and were caught on CCTV at The Avenue shopping centre in the affluent suburb of Newton Mearns. The police are now in discussions with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service over the possibility of imposing shopping centre bans on convicted offenders.

Part of the family gang was arrested recently after a £5000 spree which included designer stores All Saints and Thomas Pink in the Merchant City. Maxine Fraser claimed the sums are dwarfed by what the gangs can make in a matter of hours, often during one day.

She added: "A recent theft of £4000 by a team in Scotland took seven-and-a-half minutes. Stores believe shoplifters can take £10,000 worth of stock each day, but I think it's closer to £100,000 if they have two vehicles and four to six people. Do you think they go home after stealing £4000 or are they more likely to try another town, city or shopping mall? Ten "lifts" a day is a couple of hours work to them."

Blochairn is often subject to undercover checks by trading standards officials who are responsible for enforcing Glasgow City Council's ban on the sale of counterfeit goods. The city believes cracking down on the reset of stolen goods is a criminal matter for the police to handle. Now Strathclyde Police are planning to step up their checks in the run-up to Christmas.

Superintendent Paul Main, the officer responsible for policing the division, said: "You will see a rise in our routine targeting of this crime as we approach the traditional seasonal spike' at Christmas, but people are often willing to step into their shoes."

Maxine Fraser wants a UK government department to co-ordinate the problem, and the security chief at one of the country's largest fashion retail groups is in discussions with the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) in England and Wales over the introduction of a specialist unit after criticising the "patchy" co-ordination between different forces.

Strathclyde Police's Hard Target initiative saw a 22% cut in shop crime after officers trained 6000 Glasgow store staff in how to tackle the problem in the city, which has the largest single retailing turnover outside London.

Mitch Haynes, head of security for the Mosaic Group which includes Coast, Warehouse, Karen Millen, Oasis and Principles with an £1bn annual turn-over, said he was "frustrated" by the lack of police work between different forces.

He claimed an English force recently "didn't want to know" when told by his staff that a gang from their patch had targeted shops in a city under the jurisdiction of a neighbouring force.

Haynes said: "It's an ongoing battle and we have to keep pushing the police. It would be useful if we could get one police unit to work on high-profile organised criminals travelling between police force borders." He added that eBay co-operated to help detect those who auction "unwanted", but stolen, possessions and were recently involved in the arrest of a Middlesbrough gang who cost the industry £40,000.

Superintendent Tom Doran, who is in charge of policing shoplifting in Glasgow city centre, said eastern European criminal gangs resorted to the crude tactic of simply "removing things from a shelf, placing them in an empty bag and walking up to the till for a refund."

Doran said he was confident the city's retailers were tackling the problem, although he could not be sure how other cities dealt with it. He added: "We are having success in reducing retail crime in the city centre and Glasgow is a safe shopping centre to visit."

His officers were often surprised after arresting some of the major players to find them living in affluent addresses.

Fiona Moriarty, director of the SRC, said the cost to UK stores from the problem was £830m last year. She added: "Retail crime is seen as low level and victimless, but it's a gateway' crime and the vast majority who steal from shops have drug habits.

"There has always been a substantial upturn in criminal activity during difficult economic conditions and we are beginning to see that. More people feel the pressure and need to have things they cannot afford any longer, but that bargain dress or CD makes you the end of a criminal activity."