'Dismantled': Police claim victory over West Country organised crime gangs in major operation
Police believe that they have successfully "dismantled" organised crime groups across the West Country as part of Operation Venetic, the UK’s biggest ever law enforcement operation.
The South West Regional Organised Crime Unit (SW ROCU) has worked alongside the National Crime Agency and regional forces to act on intelligence uncovered through the takedown of EncroChat, a bespoke encrypted global communication service used exclusively by criminals.
More than 30 arrests have been made, with guns, Class A drugs, hundreds of thousand of pounds worth of cash, cars and jewellery all seized from within the region.
In Bath and Bristol, 11 people suspected of being involved in a conspiracy to supply wholesale amounts of Class A drugs in the region, and laundering hundreds of thousands of pounds, were arrested.
They also seized:
Six suspected encrypted phones
A Glock handgun, with conversion kit, silencer, and ammunition
Eight kilos of suspected cocaine
Four kilos of suspected crystal MDMA
Thousands of suspected ecstasy tablets
A hydraulic press
£100,000 cash
A number of high value vehicles.
A further £400,000 cash was also seized from a car that travelled from Bath to London.
Another investigation has seen three men arrested from Weston-super-Mare, Portishead and Shirehampton in Bristol on suspicion of money laundering and conspiracy to supply Class A drugs, with £30,000 cash seized from the Shirehampton address and a number of high value Rolex watches from two of the suspects.
Head of the SW ROCU, Det Supt Tina Robinson, said: "These results are part of a phenomenal effort across law enforcement in the past few months, which has seen us target organised criminals based in our area, as well as support the wider network to disrupt those that harm our region. And this work continues."
NCA deputy director Matt Horne said: "The NCA has worked with international partners and every single police force across the UK, but the extraordinary results we have achieved is testimony to the partnership we have with colleagues in the South West Regional Organised Crime Unit.
“By working together we have had tremendous success in penetrating and disrupting organised criminal networks, arresting the ‘kingpins’, seizing huge amounts of criminal cash, stopping firearms and drugs reaching our streets and protecting the people of the South West."
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