New operation launched to target serious and organised crime

We’ve launched a new operation to target those committing serious and organised crime across our region.

Operation Target sees West Mercia Police focus on targeting those intent on committing a range of serious and organised crime offences to ensure our communities are kept safe.

Organised crime is anything which is planned, coordinated, and conducted by people working together for financial gain and includes crimes such as drug dealing, fraud, cybercrime and modern slavery. Nationally, organised crime is seen as one of the greatest threats to communities because of the harmful effect it can have on everyone.

Criminals don’t see borders and will travel across the whole region to commit their crimes and so this operation see us working closely with our colleagues in Staffordshire, Warwickshire and West Midlands Police to ensure offenders are brought to justice.

Our combined strategy and operation will continue to be underpinned by the four P’s:

• Pursue – prosecuting and disrupting people engaged in serious and organised criminality
• Prevent – preventing people from engaging in serious and organised criminality
• Protect – increasing protection against organised crime
• Prepare – reducing the impact of serious and organised crime where it takes place

The last year was one of West Mercia Police’s most successful years in targeting county lines drugs dealing, with 336 people arrested and drugs worth an estimated £446,328 seized.

Operation Target continues this important work and is already well underway; last Thursday (8th June) officers from our Hereford Priorities Team executed several coordinated warrants on premises in Ledbury and Ross on Wye – as part of an ongoing investigation relating to the commercial scale supply and production of cannabis.

Three individuals were arrested and later charged with being involved in the production of cannabis, with two of these individuals now remanded in custody. They will appear at court at a later date.

Assistant Chief Constable Richard Cooper said: “Operation Target brings together all the work we are doing to tackle those who prey on others for their own benefit, to bring them to justice and to prevent more people from becoming victims of their selfish crimes.

“We will relentlessly pursue those involved to disrupt and dismantle their criminality, making sure they are not just put before the courts but also stripped of their ill-gotten gains.

“We are committed to protecting the most vulnerable people in our communities from harm and know that tackling serious and organised crime will play a big part in this.”

You can follow updates about Operation Target across the region on social media – search for #OpTarget

Issued by DP, Corporate Communications