More than 100 suspects have been arrested in London by undercover police ‘interceptors’ in high-speed unmarked cars and motorcycles.
Under Operation Baselife, phone thieves and shoplifters blighting the capital have been targeted by foot patrols and specialist units on the road ready to swoop in on suspects.
Another hundred officers have been dispatched in the seven-day operation which was launched on November 3.
Some 104 arrests have taken place with a range of suspected crimes including theft and drug possession.
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Among those detained were two phone thieves operating at an ice rink in Leicester Square, a prolific upskirter who covertly filmed women as they queued for the bathroom in a coffee shop and two men caught driving a stolen vehicle around Paddington.
Areas around Oxford Street and Leicester Square are among the new ‘micro-beats’ where officers in pairs patrol small patches where thieves and violent criminals are known to operate.
These beats allow officers get to know the community in their patch and gather information to help them thwart criminals. This system will continue after Baselife.
Metro joined a micro-beat team patrolling around Oxford Street where the officers arrested a man on suspicion of possession of drugs in Soho Square on Friday.
They were also on the lookout for shoplifters with 90,000 offences reported in 2024 up from 58,000 the previous year according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
Warnings about phone thieves were also given to people nearby, telling them not leave their phones on cafe tables and to pay more attention how easy it is for a phone snatcher to grab their device in the crowds and noise of central London.
Beat officers are backed up by mobile ‘interceptor’ units in SUVs and electric motorcycles to pursue criminals as part of the operation.
The teams are also on alert for violence against women and girls – particularly at night-time when clubs and bars are in full swing.
Superintendent Natasha Evans told Metro: ‘We are focusing on offences like shop lifting and robbery and we’ve had some good success in that.
‘Coming towards Christmas and the darker nights we will also be focusing on things like violence against women. We are targeting the offenders who are hitting us hard, the ones who are wanted.’
She explained that those preying on clubbers were a key priority of teams that are part of Operation Baselife.
She said: ‘One thing I’m really worried about is when people coming out of night clubs we are getting people that walk up pretend to befriend them and give them support about how you get home where the buses are or tubes but actually they are part of the gangs who steal the phones.’
‘These people intimate that they have got a knife and we know going into Christmas and nights out violence against women and girls is a challenge for us so we are also focusing on that.
‘We’re doubling down before Christmas. Local officers, specialist teams and tech such as Live Facial Recognition will focus on the areas with the most crime to keep driving numbers down.’
She also emphasised increasing ‘policing visibility’ so that people in London ‘see police in those crime hotspots’.
Superintendent Evans added: ‘I want to ensure people feel safe carrying those valuable items. You should be able to go shopping and if you want to wear those items to wear those items.’
PCs Amy Cray and Ryan Burman are part of this operation and Metro joined them on a ‘micro-beat’ for a first-hand view of the scheme.
London crime figures from the Metropolitan Police
Between April 1 and October 29, officers achieved reductions in several types of crime in the West End compared to the same period last year:
- Vehicle offences – down by 13.7%
- Neighbourhood crime – down by 20.7%
- Knife crime – down by 22.3%
- Personal robbery – down by 14.1%
- Theft from a person – down by 23.7%
- Theft from vehicle – down by 19%
Across all of London, there have also been reductions between April 1 and October 29 compared to that period last year:
- Neighbourhood offences such as theft, robbery and vehicle crime were down by nearly 15%
- Officers are arresting around 1,000 more criminals every month compared to last year
- The Met has also solved 92% more shoplifting cases this year
They arrested a man on suspicion of possession of cannabis, dealt with a suspicious bag left in the street and warned passers-by to keep their phones concealed to protect from thieves grabbing their devices.
PC Cray said: ‘On the micro beat we get to know everyone and reassure the community. We gather a lot of intelligence and I make notes on things that may become significant in a future investigation.
‘We are very aware of violence against women and girls and as a female officer sometimes women will be more open with me.’
The two officers also warned one tourist to take his phone off the cafe table to which he profusely thanked them and shouted ‘I love London’.
PC Burman said: ‘It’s a great patch and we deal with a lot. At night there can be violence. We always try to defuse a situation.
‘At night I look out for people who just don’t belong. Like someone in an area where there are clubs but not dressed for it. You get a sense of who to look out for.
‘It can be dangerous but are working to make a difference. It’s a privilege to work on the best in the West End.’
Last month the Metropolitan Police smashed an international stolen phone smuggling gang in the largest ever operation against mobile thieves in the capital.
The gang had been responsible for 40% of phones stolen in the capital with a hotspot in the West End, but police uncovered the scheme using a Find My iPhone tracker in October.
Metro joins police ‘interceptor’ team for dramatic chase and bust on knife robbery suspect
By John Dunne
Metro joined a police ‘interceptor’ unit as they apprehended a knife robbery suspect in an action-packed pursuit in central London traffic.
Myself and a photographer rode along in the back of a powerful unmarked SUV, part of an elite unit with the force’s best driving skills.
We started in Oxford Street at dusk and within minutes the police radio crackled into life with an alert that an ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) camera had pinged.
It showed a Mercedes belonging to a knife robbery suspect coming towards central London on the A4 from the direction of Heathrow.
In the front of our car were two officers with Sean driving. Next to him was an officer gathering intelligence from his computer and radio as he directed the driver like a rally car co-pilot navigating the racetrack.
They worked together in perfect harmony as our car hunted down the Mercedes – a seemingly impossible task in the London rush hour.
But assessing the traffic and using information on the suspect’s home address, where he was thought to be heading, our officers were able to find their target.
Sean clocked the car from its number plate on the opposite side of the A4 carriageway we were travelling on.
The car could not use blue lights as they would have alerted the target, so Sean skilfully and with calmness cut his way through the huge queue of traffic.
Other cars on the road parted as the penny dropped that this was a police operation.
For a tense five minutes we did not have eyes on the suspect, but after bursts of speed down Earls Court Road the target was back in sight on the Embankment.
Our driver and others in the interceptor unit are permitted to hard stop vehicles – meaning that in extreme circumstances they can force a suspect to stop by colliding with them.
In this case the unit first considered throwing down a spiked mat to burst the suspect’s tyres. But given the unpredictable speed of traffic, that plan was scrapped.
Our co-pilot instead ensured another interceptor was behind us before a heart stopping moment where we surged in front of the suspect and pulled towards his front end while the vehicle behind blocked him in.
Armed police pulled up and officers with sniffer dogs also surrounded the car. Within seconds the suspect was cuffed and frogmarched to the side of the road.
We jumped out and bemused commuters looked on as the shocked suspect answered the questions of our driver, who made the arrest.
He was detained on suspicion of a knife point robbery of a delivery van in north England.
It was an adrenaline rush for myself and the photographer to be in that car. But what struck us was the total calm of the officers even when the Mercedes had temporarily lost us.
Sean said: ‘This is what we do. Sometimes when we have to pursue someone trying to drive away at speed and it’s dangerous there is adrenaline.
‘But all of us in the interceptors know each other so well we don’t have to ask the others what they are going to do we are a very strong team.’
The interceptors also use an electric motorcycle to chase suspects using high speed bikes to level the playing field.
One of the unit added: ‘The bike is a bit of a game changer. We can follow them where we couldn’t before. These criminals should know we are coming for them.’
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