Met Police launch crackdown on illegal bikes in London

Evening Standard

The Standard was invited to join officers from Scotland Yard's Interceptor Taskforce "taking the fight" to criminals with its new fleet of lightweight Sur-ron off-road cycles. The Police are launching a major crackdown on phone snatches and luxury watch rippers on e-bikes blighting London's West End before Christmas.

Transcript

00:00This is the moment an e-bike phone thief was arrested by the Met Police on Charing Cross

00:05Road in Soho, London.

00:08The Standard was invited to join Scotland Yard's Interceptor Taskforce as they attempt

00:13to stamp out e-bike theft with their new fleet of lightweight Siron off-road cycles.

00:19On Friday night, 16 bikes were confiscated in Cambridge Circus and 12 in Ealing.

00:26The majority of those belonged to food delivery drivers.

00:29One man was unable to speak English and use Google Translate to tell officers that he

00:34had bought his bike online, not realising that it was illegal.

00:37Another man was arrested after being wanted for a sexual offence.

00:41Later that evening, the Interceptor squads coordinated deployments over the radio.

00:45In a high-speed police chase across Knightsbridge, the squad and two unmarked SUVs halted a motorcyclist

00:52wanted for theft.

00:54But he was later released as there was not enough evidence to charge him.

00:58These arrests are a part of the police's major crackdown on phone snatchers and luxury watch

01:03rippers across London's West End.

01:06We've seized two and a half thousand bikes in the last year.

01:08We're seeing them increasing rates.

01:10As we've been updating Londoners in the 32 boroughs, I've been out myself in many of them,

01:15talking about our New Met for London plans, all the progress we've made, what we're doing next.

01:19This issue comes up in every borough.

01:21It comes up whether you're talking about in the city boroughs or Westminster and in outer London,

01:26in places like Bromley and Kingston.

01:27It keeps coming up.

01:28In London itself, you know, we see them used for various types of acquisitive crime,

01:33from burglaries to death from motor vehicles.

01:38They're sometimes involved in ram raids where there are other vehicles involved,

01:42but these vehicles are used as getaway vehicles.

01:45They're used by criminal gangs to deal drugs.

01:49We often see people ride them and the ones that we caught quite often have weapons with them.

01:55London may have become Europe's phone snatch capital,

01:58with one device stolen every six minutes, but the Met's message is clear.

02:03You want to come into London to commit those types of offences, then be prepared to meet my team.

02:08And worst case scenario, you will have your bike taken off you, you'll be locked up,

02:13and potentially will use extreme tactics such as tactical contacts to end the pursuit,

02:19mitigate the risk, and you may sustain injuries as a result of that.

02:23And the serious point today is, if you're buying e-bikes, e-scooters at Christmas,

02:29they're very illegal, you've had to use them legally.

02:31Otherwise then, they're under our Christmas tree next year as well.

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