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Indicate cops make first arrests
Page 7
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A POLICE SQUAD set up two months ago to combat soaring truck crime in the West Midlands has made its first arrests following a tip-off about a stolen trailer.
Six men were arrested during a raid on a business unit in Brierley Hill, near Dudley, where aluminium worth more than 180,000 was seized.
A spokeswoman for Operation Indicate, which employs a dozen people, reports that so far three of the men have been charged with conspiracy to steal trucks and their loads.
"This is the first main job we have done," she says. "We don't deal with every fiGV crime because our main purpose is to collate information sent in by different police stations and do the intelligence work behind it."
The trailer belongs to a Dutch aluminium company; it had been left overnight outside a metals factory in Tipton.
"The driver turned up a day early," the spokeswoman adds. "He dumped the trailer outside because they would not let him in. It was later seen going into the premises in Brierley Hill."
Police say steel and aluminium are the main targets for truck theft in the region because of their high scrap value (CM 22 July).
• Operation Indicate, set up following the closure of its predecessor Operation Coppergold,is based at Wednesbury Police Station: phone 0121 626 9121.