Successful ANPR operation in the City of London

City of London Police recently carried out an Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) operation that led to a number of arrests, seized vehicles and intel captured. We use ANPR technology to help detect, deter and disrupt criminal activity at a local and national level. This includes travelling criminals (those using the road network to avoid being caught), organised crime groups and terrorists.

ANPR provides lines of enquiry and evidence in the investigation of crime and is used by forces throughout the UK.

How it works

As a vehicle passes an ANPR camera, its registration number is read and instantly checked against database records of vehicles of interest.

Police officers can stop a vehicle, speak to the occupants and, where necessary, make arrests.

ANPR has proved to be important in the detection of many offences, including locating, for example, people wanted for arrest or missing, witnesses, stolen vehicles, uninsured vehicles and uncovering cases of major crime.

ANPR operation

For two nights last month we focussed on detecting vehicles that hit our ANPR cameras. It resulted in:

• Five arrests (four for possession with intent to supply and one for drink driving);
• 13 traffic tickets; and
• Eight vehicle seizes.

Police dogs

Police dogs are essential in our efforts to combat and deter criminal activity.

Their acute sense of smell and hunting instincts are an invaluable crime-fighting tool, regularly searching people and vehicles in the City, as well as working in transport hubs.

Our detector dogs have been highly trained to find a variety of items such as drugs, firearms, explosives, money, weapons. They also help crackdown on county lines criminality.