£1 Million of recovered goods by Regional Roads Policing Team

A specialist police team has seized over one million pounds worth of cash and goods from criminals using Yorkshire's roads in the first quarter of 2009.

The Regional Roads Policing Team launched in autumn 2008 with a remit to deny criminals the use of roads in Yorkshire and the Humber and to stop offenders who cross force boundaries to commit crimes. Between 1 January and 31 March 2009, the Regional Roads Policing Team have seized over £1,000,668 of assets and stolen property from criminals who are using the regions roads.

The team is one of the first of its kind in the country and is a joint collaboration between the four police forces of Yorkshire and the Humber with operational units based at Wakefield, Sheffield and Tadcaster and an Operations & Planning unit based in Wakefield. They use a combination of specialist skills, sophisticated technology, and information supplied by the Regional Intelligence Unit at North East Leeds, to track down those who use roads to carry out serious and organised crime.

Each unit comprises a sergeant and eight police constables drawn from North, West and South Yorkshire forces. Experienced officers from each of the four forces use a combination of high performance vehicles with state-of-the-art automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology from cameras in vehicles, together with information from the Regional Intelligence Unit to track down travelling criminals.

The Regional Roads Policing Team is committed to supplying additional support wherever needed across the whole of Yorkshire and the Humber. South Yorkshire Police Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes, speaking on behalf of the four Yorkshire and Humber Chief constables, said: "The results are already showing what can be achieved by working together as a region and focusing on those using the roads to commit crime. A joint-working approach is delivering great results and represents good value for the region."

Chief Inspector Mick Hunter, head of the Regional Roads Policing Team, added: "The one million pound mark of recovered goods in just three months illustrates how the officers and staff within the department are already having an impressive impact against criminal networks across the region."

Yorkshire and the Humber is at the forefront of regional working, combining the resources of the four forces and collectively giving them better capacity and capability to deal with crime for the benefit of people within the region. The principles of collaborative working also have the support of the four Police Authorities, collectively known as Joint Police Authorities Committee
(JPAC).