Hundreds of police have raided 20 locations across Soho in central London to target human trafficking, drug dealing, and those selling stolen goods.
The raids resulted in 29 arrests, with the police hoping to dismantle the “criminal infrastructure” in the area.
Today’s raids were a culmination of 18 months of investigations by the police, in an operation codenamed “Demontree”, with undercover officers and CCTV used to target criminal gangs.
Police have said that they believed a number of businesses in Soho were being used by gangs as fronts for drug dealing and handling stolen goods including mobile phones, jewellery and watches. Bars, brothels, cab companies and sex shops all implicated.
Police are also trying to push for the closure of a number of brothels which are alleged to be linked to human trafficking and rape.
Financial investigators are also being used to follow the money from these criminal activities to see whether there are links to larger criminal organisations.