Well-connected to a prolific gang of thieves, he would offer sub-editors a nice range of pure wool jackets in an upstairs room of a bayside pub.

So the once-ratty sports subs took to wearing natty sports coats and when they discussed something hot off the press they weren't necessarily talking about the back-page headline.

At a recent school reunion it was revealed staff had taken advantage of one student's ability to source stolen leather jackets until most of the teachers looked like extras from The Wild One.

The teachers are long retired, while the student graduated to more serious matters, which is why he is doing time for drug trafficking.

Australians are good at many things, such as surfing, wine-making and cricket sledging, but on the world stage we have a well-earned reputation as first-class thieves. If it was an Olympic event we would win gold, then pickpocket silver and bronze on the podium.

And given the opportunity, we would steal the Olympic Flame and set it up as a backyard wood-fired pizza oven.

For generations of crooks, the London-based Kangaroo Gang was an international finishing school for dishonesty. These included Keith Albert Collingwood, who left Australia as a battling crim with 28 convictions and returned a millionaire with criminal connections in 10 countries.

The media quite rightly concentrates on violent crimes, particularly when the victim is "innocent" and randomly attacked. Which is why some abductions are not reported because they involve the torture of defaulted drug buyers who are being encouraged to embrace a robust repayment plan.

One such fellow, dumped at a hospital looking as if he had gone 12 rounds with an angry honey badger, was at a complete loss to explain how he mislaid a couple of his toes.

Equally, we wake on many mornings to hear of another suburban shooting where the victim is perplexed as to why he was the object of such random cruelty. In our world, the usual response to a stubborn debt is an angry letter in the mail; in the underworld, it is a .38 slug in the thigh.

The obscene costs of civil legal action means legitimate debts are being outsourced to bikies and assorted tough guys, who charge less than lawyers, take calls after hours, claim to get better results and feel that charging a buck a page for photocopying is outright robbery.

While we have seen a spate of terrifying home invasions and carjackings, we remain, in world terms, a safe society where we can walk and drive with little chance of being bashed, shot, stabbed or spat upon (unless you miss a newspaper deadline).

But you are increasingly likely to become a victim of so-called volume crimes such as motor vehicle thefts or house burglaries, which can sap the confidence of victims and leave them permanently traumatised.

The latest crime figures are sobering reading, with an 8 per cent increase in overall crime, 22 per cent in theft from cars and a 9 per cent jump in burglaries.

Burglary and break-and-enter figures jumped from 44,983 in 2015 to 51,134 this year, with the average loss around $5000.

It is one of the great mysteries. What happens to all the stuff stolen from homes and businesses by everyone from opportunistic thieves to organised gangs?

The days of crooks selling hot TVs down the pub are long gone for two reasons.

1) Most old-style pubs have been replaced by trendy wine bars where they think VB is a disease contracted by sitting on a toilet seat, and:

2) People won't even grab a second-hand TV off the nature strip during a hard-rubbish collection.

Thirty years ago there was a huge market in stolen electronic gear, so much so police considered setting up an electrical repair business in St Kilda then have undercover police tell local drug dealers the shop would buy stolen property.

It was to be a six-week sting operation, but the idea was abandoned due to the cost.

Now that market has collapsed. After all, you can buy a DVD player for under $40 at an appliance store, which means the Good Guys can do it cheaper than the bad guys.

Now much of the stolen gear is sold through the second-hand online market, while nicked mobile phones are often sold for between $100 and $300 to repairers for spare parts.

According to Assistant Commissioner (Crime) Steve Fontana, there are lucrative domestic and international markets for stolen goods.

Older stolen cars are sold for cash to be broken down for parts or sent overseas as scrap metal, while newer luxury cars are hidden in the same containers to be sent to the Middle East.

There has been a spike in carjackings where drivers are followed and jumped by gangs of young men, with police saying the vehicles are often stolen to order.

Police have responded with Operation Cosmas and have made 60 arrests, but there is more than one way to deter such offenders.

Just a few weeks ago, a group of not-so-sharp African lads armed with blunt weapons pulled over an Italian fellow in a German car. This proved to be a strategic blunder as the gent, one of Melbourne's biggest Mafia figures, responded not with the keys but with a handgun secreted on his person.

As they drove off,the Mafia man let off a couple of shots to remind them that not all crime pays.

Even though police are authorised to pursue suspects when the conditions are safe, crooks are continuing to speed off. In recent times, a driver threw out 50 stolen credit and Medicare cards as he was being chased, while another was found with 21 passports.

Another drove away as if he was Jack Brabham on Angel Dust travelling the wrong way down a main street all over a $40 theft.

Fontana says drug investigators have found containers and storage lock-ups filled with stolen property destined for overseas. "We have discovered modern-day Aladdin's Caves of stolen goods," he says.

In a recent drug taskforce raid, detectives found such a stash in a rented storage unit it showed the ring had everything short of a frequent flyer program. It included 61 mobile phones, 37 watches, 11 top-end road and mountain bikes, surfboards, laptops, 16 digital cameras, power tools, passports, guitars and jewellery.

In a new trend, crooks are using stolen vehicles in ram raids on electronics shops to grab the latest gizmos for shipment overseas.

Police says most house burglaries are committed by the ice-addicted who swap stolen jewellery, smart phones, computers and cash for drugs on a daily basis.

I have been such a victim, coming home just as the burglar decamped through another door, which saved him from a proper thrashing and a stern lecture.

While the house is heavily fortified (as are dinner guests after ruby port and blue cheese), we left the place unsecured during a quick visit to the shops. The police arrived and promptly tracked the offender via the "find my iphone" app as he headed to a pawnshop on the other side of town.

When he spotted uniform police, he ducked away and hid at the back of a factory, turning the phone off. Later it re-engaged outside a halfway house for recently released prisoners.

It turned out he was regularly in our suburb, heading across town like a migrating bison looking for water. He was working the postcode, virtually street by street.

So police are using predictive analysis to get ahead of the game, working out burglary patterns to try and anticipate where offenders will strike.

There are growing reports of anti-social crooks using social media to identify empty homes. If you have a picture on Facebook of your family on holiday in New York eating Thanksgiving turkey you may be a sitting duck back home.

And the smarter crooks use Google Street View to case possible targets from their (probably stolen) laptops.

Increasingly, gangs are using hand-held thermal detectors to identify hydroponic crops grown in suburban houses to return for violent drug rip-offs. It is the near perfect crime, as the victims can hardly go to the local police station to report the baddies have stolen their $80,000 cannabis plantation.

The growers are using booby-traps and arming crop sitters to take on the invaders and there have been at least four recent murders committed during run-throughs.

And there are organised gangs, based in Melbourne's north, that have identified country towns where police do not patrol.

Some gangs are recruiting underage offenders in the belief that if caught they will be quickly processed through the Children's Court and be back on the streets before your stolen mobile phone runs out of battery.

It is the simple economic reality. Where there is a demand, there will be a supply.