How undercover police are luring and catching luxury watch robbers on the street

Undercover officers are wearing luxury watches as bait to catch robbers as they target people in London.

Footage released by the Metropolitan Police shows unwitting thieves being tasered, rugby-tackled and wrestled to the ground after trying to rip the high-value items from their wrists.

Read more: https://news.sky.com/topic/crime-9501

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What you’re watching is an undercover operation a police officer on the left deployed as a fake victim wearing a watch worth thousands to lure in criminals seeking to steal the result a robbery arrest made the criminals convicted a new met police tactic to reverse what’s been a rising Trend what

We’re seeing is groups of men targeting people coming out of bars and clubs spotting if you’re wearing a high value watch approaching them trying to start a conversation calling in their the rest of their group and and carrying out the robbery in 2015 there were over 6 and a

Half thousand recorded watch thefts in England and Wales by 2022 that number had almost doubled to 11,035 while the circumstances are often different this is happening right across the country I don’t see the money in that car here piece we was looking at do you Paul Thorp was a luxury watch dealer

For four for decades but was violently robbed three times before being forced to leave the trade altogether the stolen watch industry is almost as lucrative in many areas as the drug industry but the authorities take it far less seriously the Met say this new operation shows they are taking these crimes seriously

Undercover officers wearing watches as bait putting themselves in precarious positions but these watches are targeted because they’re hugely valuable with a price tag that’s only growing people are essentially wearing a small fortune on their wrist it’s visible it’s expensive and these watches can be resold for a

Very high price on the secondary Market police in London say these side street tactics are working robberies halfed in certain hotpots but money drives crime and this is a lucrative business Molly Malone Sky News